EA Sports has announced plans to adopt Virgin Gaming as a service for competitive games, sponsored and pay-to-play tournaments.

Virgin Gaming was unveiled as a tournament platform at last year's E3, defeating speculation that owner Richard Branson was about to move back into games publishing.

EA now plans to start hosting tournaments aided by Virgin's "seamless web functionality" on PS3 and 360 later this year.

Said EA Sports boss Peter Moore," Competitive online gaming is an increasingly popular component of our industry and a great way for EA Sports and Virgin Gaming to help connect gamers around the world through the global language of sports.

"Virgin Gaming demonstrates the system-wide integrity we desire, and this is a great opportunity for EA SPORTS fans to experience secure and impeccably managed online tournaments for some of our top titles."

Virgin last year arranged a similar deal with Ubisoft.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...with-ea-sports