Intel held a press conference at E3 today which was pretty different to what most people expected. The company focused on VR and eSports instead of hardware. There was a small mention of their latest hardware but nothing major.

eSports

The first big reveal is the start of a new eSport league called ” Grand Slam”. This CS:GO tournament is spread across 10 different competitions. The first team to win 4 of these competitions will win the $1 million purse in addition to what they win from the other tournaments.

In addition to this Intel and ESL announced that they’ve entered a global partnership. Intel will be the main hardware provider for ESL competitions and competitors.

VR

Related to eSports, Intel is starting a VR eSports league called the VR Challenger League. The competition starts in July and is focused around the upcoming VR game from Ready at Dawn. Echo Arena is a 10 player pvp game where two teams battle it out in the arena to be the first team to score a goal.

Intel is sponsoring the game so that it’s free for all Oculus rift owners which makes this game highly accessible. The game will be releasing on July 20th alongside Lone Echo which is a single player game.

In addition to this, Intel also announced a VR ‘destination’ for Linkin Park. This destination acts as a hub for a wide range of Linkin Park news and features. However, they didn’t release too many details about this. This will be coming to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on July 27th

Was the Intel conference what you expected? Let us know your thoughts!