Omega Sektor
We've had our collective ear to the ground regarding Omega Sektor, the ambitious project that began with the re-furbishment of the Harrow LAN centre and will be culminating with two huge LAN centres, one in Birmingham and one in London. As well as more details on the games and events that are planned we've got the first images of the Xbox 360 pods they'll be using.
But in speaking with Dominic Mulroy, one of Omega Sektor's founders, he was delighted to tell us that Intel have jumped on board the project and will be the Processor Partner for Omega Sektor...this is big news as Intel are clearly aiming for the gamer with their new range of fast dual core CPUs.
But here's Dominic with the heads-up on how things are progressing and what the new partnership will mean for gamers.
HEXUS:Can you tell us more about the Intel Partnership?
Dominic:"It was important for us to select the right technology partner for what will be the largest gaming centre in Europe and the focus of the entire UK professional gaming event scene. Our PCs will have a combination of the Intel Core 2 Duo and the Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme. Quite simply, this is the best performance processor on the market, and gamers will see why it’s the processor of choice for Omega Sektor once we open in December. Sujoy and I are proud to be partnering with Intel again, and with their help, 2007 will see some very exciting developments for the UK e-sports scene."
Click for larger imageHEXUS:How are plans progressing with the Birmingham venue?
Dominic:We have had a lot more interest over the last few weeks with the games industry, and our exposure has given rise to some area's that were initially worrying! A couple of weeks ago we were approached by West Midlands Police to discuss our plans after news had filtered through to them. We had concerns on our request for 24 hour opening, but the Police were very forthright with their own ideas on where we could improve our plans. They also raised national security aspects of our business that we never had thought of before, and if you think about it for a few minutes, you can see them. These meetings culminated in several officers attending our Harrow venue to see a working centre in motion. Thanks to their support, our venue will be working alongside the Police to ensure safety and security for both ourselves and our visitors, with new plans for tagging our younger visitors and CCTV being monitored by our own in house security team and the Police themselves.
Click for larger imageHere you can see a special booth that Intel are installing on to the ground floor. Housed in this specially designed PC cabinet will be an Extreme PC that is overclocked to such an extent that specialised cooling and performance systems will be in place. Gamers can test its power on a multitude of LCD and Plasma screens using a variety of Benchmarking tools.
HEXUS:What can gamers expect from the type of tournaments on offer?
Dominic:Every PC will include access to every game, regardless of the "Sector" they are in. Right now we are buzzing about the new game Company of Heroes, and we are talks with THQ to run a tournament around this game. We also have some very big tournaments coming almost as soon as we open.
We have met with pretty much every event organiser in the UK and some from Europe, and all are planning on running regular tournaments at the venues. Large scale cash prizes are likely to be on offer practically every weekend. I have a feeling that this will boost the UK e-sports scene to a place its not been before, and our decision to incorporate a TV studio with tricast facilities has generated a lot of interest from TV production companies. For the first time I can forsee well produced and run shows that will cover the UK tournament scene starting to hit Sky within a few months.
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