Microsoft, Reliance announce Halo Multiplayer PC gaming championship

To give the much-needed fillip to the gaming industry in India, Microsoft Game Studios and Reliance WebWorld launched the Halo Multiplayer Championship at Reliance WebWorlds. The Championship has been designed to reach out to 7,000 gamers who can play and win with Halo - the a sci-fi adventure from Microsoft at designated Reliance WebWorlds hosting the tournament in their city.

The Championship will be conducted across seven cities -- Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Poona, Kolkata and Bangalore. The key roll-out elements include registration and practice by participants in Phase 1 (which starts from 15th November till 15th December, 2003) followed by the preliminary and semi-final rounds in Phase 2 (From 19th-21st December, 2003) and the finals in Phase 3 (28th December, 2003) at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City in Navi
Mumbai. 

The All-India winner will get a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh as well as all expense paid trip to Los Angeles to participate in the Worldwide Halo Championships Final. The second and third prize winners will get cash prize of Rs 35,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively while the next five runner-ups will get Rs 2,000 each. Additionally, winners in each city will also be given cash prizes.

Halo is a science fiction epic adventure Microsoft Game which was initially launched on the XBox console. It is now being launched in a PC version which enables upto 16 players to play online together at the same time. It also has new multi-player features including the Rocket Launcher Warthog and Flying Banshee in battles for online dominance through 19 multiplayer maps including six all-new maps. 

In addition to supporting Internet play and local area networks, Microsoft has set aside dedicated servers for "Halo" to allow hoards of gamers to compete against each other in thrilling, online multiplayer games. These dedicated servers offer gamers a simple way to connect online hassle-free.

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