Now, everyone into PC gaming can experience the Predator at High Grounds Cafe, the first and only fully branded gaming facility in the Philippines. I had the chance to attend the launch, and all I can say is the place is awesome. There’s an area at the ground floor dedicated to gaming, and almost the entire 2nd floor has gaming desktops installed.

Take note that these are not just your basic gaming desktops. These are the best gaming desktops courtesy of Predator, with 110 units of the Predator G1 (GTX 1080) and Predator G3 (GTX 1060) on hand for hours and hours of playing. These machines are paired with the 24-inch full HD Predator XB241H monitors that support NVIDIA G sync technology. The setup will definitely boost any gamer’s day with its no-tear and less-stutter performance for fast-paced games and fierce visuals.

The Predator G1 features an ultra-powerful Intel Core™ i7 6700 processor (8M Cache, up to 4.00GHz) inside and 32GB DDR4 2133MHz memory enough to make a powerful performance no matter which gaming title will be played. It’s fitted with 3TB 3.5-inch 7200 RPM and 256 GB M.2 2280 Solid State Drive combination, a force to reckon with in terms of storage capability. For visual clarity that lets you get your focus into the game, the setup also has the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB of GDDR5 graphics card to deliver the goods when it comes to an awesome and immersive game experience.

Meanwhile, the Predator G3 boasts of the same overclocked Intel i7 processor, powerful 16GB DDR4 2133MHz memory and 2TB 3.5-inch and 128GB Solid State Drive combination for the utmost in storage capacity and NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 with 3GB GDDR5 graphics card that lets you stun your enemies with out-of-this-world graphics and dominate the eSports scene.

High Grounds Café is operated by the country’s top gaming café brand TheNet.com (TNC). Gaming enthusiasts and professionals alike should definitely check out this place. The top-of-the-line and powerful Predator gaming PCs in a gaming environment that’s unlike any other in the country today is such an awesome place to miss out.

The gaming facility can accommodate hundreds of players at any given time. Expect screams, shrieks of delight in conquest and supremacy to rock the place. Gamers can also enjoy delicious snacks and other meal-time favorites during breaks from their game so they can recharge their batteries and be ready to dominate the competition again.

TNC.com owner Eric Redulfin said High Grounds Café breaks the barriers in what used to be Internet-surfing-only cyber cafes. “The environment now is totally different in terms of cyber cafés. What used to be just for Internet surfing and browsing metamorphosed into complete full-fledged gaming centers. Of course the Internet is still there but gaming now takes the spotlight and the attention of game-loving and esports aficionados in the country.”

Redulfin revealed that High Grounds Café will also be the perfect breeding ground of future Filipino esports stars who can give eSports players from other countries a run for their money. “The Philippines is a young entrant in the global esports arena. Compared to other gaming countries, I could say we’re behind but that was 2-5 years ago. Now, even if we started competing only last year in tournaments abroad, we gained much attention already with the recent triumph of the TNC Pro Team during WESG,” he said.

The TNC Pro Team, bannered by members Marco Polo “Raven” Fausto, Carlo “Kuku” Palad, Samson Solomon “Sam_H” Hidalgo, Timothy “Tims” Randrup, and Ryo “ryOyr” Hasegawa, made history by becoming the first Filipino grand champions at the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) 2016 Defense of the Ancients (DotA) 2 competition. The team took home a rich total prize pot of US$800,000 (roughly Php40 million) after defeating the Cloud9 team from Denmark in a heart-pounding finals match.

Redulfin and team manager Paulo Sy both admitted it’s tough to maintain a competitive team that should be well trained and funded. But with the arrival of the Predator desktops at High Grounds, they know that more and more eSports “athletes” or gamers will have full access to powerful PCs that can deliver the best—and only the best—experience in leisure and competitive gaming. There’s no better time than now to be a gamer, especially if you’re into eSports.

During the opening of High Grounds Cafe, we also witnessed the launch of the Predator 21 X. This beast of a laptop comes with a 21-inch-wide FHD (2560 x 1080) IPS screen with 2000R curvature, 7th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 SLI with 16GB GDDR5X graphics card coupled with 64GB of DDR4 system memory, plus Acer ColorBlast™ technology for the clearest and most abundant colors ever to reach a laptop.

The Predator 21 X was announced September 2016 during the [email protected] press conference at IFA 2016 (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) exhibition. I was floored when I learned about the features of this gaming laptop. The High Grounds Cafe is definitely the perfect battleground for the launch of this much-awaited machine.

Targeting the well-heeled and loaded tech lovers out there who will spare no peso in getting the most advanced and powerful gaming rig around, the Predator 21 X is a perfect fit for gamers who seek a whole new level of immersion in terms of sound and visuals, interaction, cooling and power efficiency never seen before in any gaming laptop. For more about the Predator gaming system, visit the Predator Philippines Facebook page - @PredatorPhilippines.