Xbox Live Arena brings daily tournaments to Xbox One preview

Microsoft is expanding the capabilities of Xbox Live, and that includes making it a more feature-rich destination for competitive gamers.

Arena is up now on Xbox Live in the U.S. Preview Program, and it is providing Killer Instinct players on Xbox One with a way to participate in daily tournaments for the fighting game. To participate in tournaments, you need to check the Arena tab and then register for upcoming competitions. Of course, to play online on Xbox One, you need to pay for an Xbox Live Gold subscription that costs $60 per year, though this is not a requirement on PC once Arena goes live in the Xbox app on Windows 10. The move represents a small step for Microsoft into esports. These Arena competitions are not big, professional tournaments with corporate sponsors and hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, but they should give amateurs and casual players easy access to a different style of play.