i39

Thursday, 11th March 2010: Nintendo will be showcasing the DSi XL, its latest iteration of the world's most popular handheld, at the 2nd - 3 5th April event, which is expected to attract over 3,500 gamers.

The 'i' series of LAN events has rapidly established itself as the premiere multiplayer gaming event in the UK. For four days, gamers descend on Newbury Racecourse for non-stop competition in games like Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Team Fortress 2, Heroes of Newerth on PC, and Halo 3 on Xbox 360.

Ubisoft, World Cyber Games, Crucial, Antec, Papa Johns and Kustom PC are also among the confirmed attendees with many more yet to confirm. Alongside those participating in the event, which promises to be the social event of the year for game players, up to 70,000 are expected to tune in online to watch the competitions reach their thrilling climaxes.

Organiser Multiplay has increased options for attendees this year, with a wealth of ticketing and accommodation options available, from camping on site (for tents and caravans), to indoor sleeping areas - all included within the weekend price. Spectator tickets are available on a weekend or daily basis, offering the best seats in the house for the competitive gaming.

"Historically, the UK has struggled to unite the games industry, but the 'i' series of events have been growing year by year," says Craig Fletcher, Managing Director, Multiplay, "and i39 is shaping up to be a great weekend. With a massive prize pot, some of the most fiercely competitive games and a real festival vibe, it's an event for everyone interested in gaming. We're delighted Nintendo has chosen i39 to showcase the Nintendo DSi XL - it's a real endorsement of the event and its participants."

Multiplay is the leading LAN organiser, which complements its huge online presence. Its game servers are rapidly becoming the destination of choice for online games players - in the last 30 days alone, its websites has served 7.5 million page views from 1.4 million visits, and its game servers played host to a nightly peak of 18,000 concurrent gamers. Fileplay, its content distribution service, delivered 47,000 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 beta keys and 157,000 clients (at 1.5Gb each) in record time.

Tickets for i39 are available now, ranging from GBP 10 (day spectator) to GBP 90 (weekend competition).

For more information, contact sales@multiplay.co.uk

A high resolution version of the image above can be downloaded here.

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For more information, please contact Simon Byron, Ali Wood or Lauren Dillon at Premier PR ( firstname.surname@premierpr.com / 44 207 292 8330)

About Multiplay

Multiplay is a leading service provider to the games industry through events, server hosting, content delivery and consultancy. Multiplay online community is one of the largest in Europe. Multiplay gaming events annually attract over 15,000 gamers. These events are an ideal opportunity for publishers, developers, retailers and hardware manufacturers to showcase their latest products. Its events also play host to the finals of their online tournaments and the UK finals of the World Cyber Games. Multiplay is one of the world's largest hosts of online game servers, with multiple locations across the globe, providing specialist commercial hosting for PC and Consoles, including game servers and high availability websites. Multiplay has a proven track record with extensive hosting agreements with many publishers and developers.