Soulja Boy has been into videogames for a while, and now he’s a certified PC gamer with a custom-built machine by NZXT. He provided a few details about his rig to TMZ, saying that watching the process of his PC coming together had inspired him to get into the games industry – and possibly even start his own esports company.
Soulja Boy tells TMZ that he plans on putting together teams for Fortnite, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, and Overwatch in 2019, and he seems pretty serious about it. After all, this news comes hot on the heels of his launch of his own ‘classic’ gaming console – although initial reviews on that particular piece of hardware have been mixed, at best.
Soulja said he’s had help from Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins when it’s come to getting set up for streaming games on Twitch, and that Ninja’s also helped him through the Twitch verification process. But he acknowledges that getting Ninja on a contract with his esports organization might be tricky.
“It’s going to be a lot to hire Ninja to play for me,” he said.
Indeed, running a successful esports company isn’t cheap – even if you aren’t retaining the services of the world’s most popular streamer. This year, Forbes ranked the most valuable esports organizations in the world, putting Cloud9 at the top at $310 (£246) million.
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We’ll see what happens with that, but in the meantime, we can welcome Soulja Boy to the ranks of serious PC players. In his brief TMZ interview, Soulja said he had a gaming PC built for him by NZXT, customized with his logo and packed with enough high-end hardware and lighting effects to run up a price tag of $15,000 USD (or just shy of £12,000).
“That really sparked a big vision,” Soulja said, holding a Nintendo Switch in his left hand as he stood near an airport terminal. “Once I’d seen that PC and everything, I’d seen them build it from scratch in one day, you know what I’m saying?”
“It was just inspiring for me, so here we are” he continued. “I’m multitasking, man – music, tech, everything.”
Top image credit: Soulja Boy – HML, via WAV