DICE, in collaboration with Virgin Gaming, has just announced it will be holding a worldwide gaming competition for its upcoming, highly-anticipated title, Battlefield 3. The competition will be big and it will also mark the largest console-gaming cash prize in history, set at $1.6 Million. The online tournament will begin in early 2012 and will eventually lead into a LIVE grand finale where the best players in the game will walk away with some of that cash.

PC games have been having prize pools set at the millions for years with consoles capping at the thousands. But with this new generation of console games, are things going to change? I mean, just recently CoD XP 2011 held a $1 million tournament for Modern Warfare 3 and we all know Battlefield wants to compete in every way possible… why not with Virgin Gaming?

Virgin Gaming is very similar to MLG. They host online ladder events and help players earn a quick buck for playing games. The only thing they don’t do is better establish pro players… but I think that’s going to change with their Battlefield 3 collaboration.

Either way, Battlefield 3 hits store on October 28^th, 2011 and that’ll be your chance to practice hard and attempt at that $1.6M!