We sent resident news editor Sam Bishop out to Montreal for the Rainbow Six: Siege Invitational where he managed to speak to Siege esports Director François-Xavier Dénièle about Ubisoft's plans for esports over the coming year, including how this year the plan is to strengthen every part of the Siege esports ecosystem:
"Year Four will be the console edition of our esports programme, meaning this year we want to reinforce every layer of competition, so that's why we are going to the US for the Major as it is a huge market for esports".
Dénièle then spoke out how successful Siege's Asian and Pacific region (APAC) has been:
"What I'm really proud of is the evolution of the APAC region, we introduced APAC one year ago and now I'm really happy to see two teams in the quarter-finals and Nora Rengo in the semi-finals".
Dénièle then went on to speak about the planned Asian pro league final which is in the works, "now we have a strong presence in Asia and the best part is next year we are looking for a pro league final in Asia for the first time, so it's the right message sent for the esport eco-system for Rainbow Six".
When speaking about the topic of Siege minors, Dénièle said, "what I like with a minor such as DreamHack is the possibilities that every player can fight against the best players of the world. We are really happy with what we did at DreamHack and opening it now to other sub-party tournaments, we think it's good for development of the game".
Whilst on the subject of allowing every player to take a shot at the best, Dénièle couldn't help but show his admiration for Japanese organisation Nora Rengo.
"Everyone loves Nora Rengo because these guys are so good, so funny and they don't have pressure. I love this sort of flavour from a region on this sort of event".
How do you think Ubisoft's approach to developing the Rainbow Six: Siege Pro scene has been?
