EA Access, Xbox One - $5/mo, $30/yr

Sony shouldn't be making those calls in a free market economy. It should be down to the consumer whether the deal represents value or not.

Agreed. What business is it of theirs how their customers choose to spend their money? It sounds like spin to me. They're saying it doesn't represent good value because they know it does for some people.
 
Anyone else see this as the gradual re-introduction of the "EA online pass"?

i.e. this sort of timeline:
- FIFA 2015 is 10% cheaper for customers with an EA subscription.
- dragon age comes with bonus content for customers with an EA subscriptions.
- FIFA 2016 requires an EA subscription for an online penalty game.
- FIFA 2017 requires an EA subscription for online play.

I'm pretty sure that ubisoft/activision would jump at the chance to force customers into subscription services.
 
Sony shouldn't be making those calls in a free market economy. It should be down to the consumer whether the deal represents value or not.

I think it´s more about Sony getting competition for PS+, would EA supply games to PS+ if they had EA Access customers on the same platform? And the PS4 is not a a free market, it´s a market 100% controlled by Sony.

Any word on the PC platform, EA doesn´t have to ask anyone there, they have Origin to supply the goods.
 
Indeed, Sony don't want anyone siphoning off some of their much needed online revenue. Letting EA milk customer teats directly over PSN isn't part of the PS4 business case.
 
Anyone else see this as the gradual re-introduction of the "EA online pass"?

i.e. this sort of timeline:
- FIFA 2015 is 10% cheaper for customers with an EA subscription.
- dragon age comes with bonus content for customers with an EA subscriptions.
- FIFA 2016 requires an EA subscription for an online penalty game.
- FIFA 2017 requires an EA subscription for online play.

I'm pretty sure that ubisoft/activision would jump at the chance to force customers into subscription services.


Still don't see how consumers are being forced.
 
Completely agree. I wonder how EA's system will integrate into the Xbox One. Will Microsoft bake it into their store so it's completely seamless or will it be a separate app.
According to the message I got its an app. If I get time I'll take a look tonight.
 
It's a weird model. As Patrick Klepek pointed out in his story on Giant Bomb it appears the service is designed to convince people to actually buy new games when they start hitting, but if you find you end up buying the games you want why do you need the subscription anymore? So a coupon book analogy seems to be more accurate, especially with the monthly option. Games come out so tightly packed in the fall you could sign up for a single month, save almost $20 buying 4 games and then immediately cancel. Last year's sports titles are of little to no value. Early access to demo versions of new games is of little to no value. I don't know that EA alone has enough of a library to ever make long term subscription access to just their games desirable.

There are plenty of games I would play if they were cheap or free, that I wouldn't buy outright. I might be inclined to try the UFC game, or the new Dragon Age, some time down the road, but there's no way I'd buy them. I imagine most people have titles they would play but not at $60. If you can get them later from the vault using a subscription, then it's not a bad deal. Really depends how many games you buy and how many games you play for free to make the $30 worth it, but $30 is pretty cheap.
 
Sony shouldn't be making those calls in a free market economy. It should be down to the consumer whether the deal represents value or not.

They make decisions like that all the time. PlayStation Store is a curated marketplace. I think they're well within their right to tell EA to take a hike if they think it's a crappy deal and an even worse precedent.

There are plenty of games I would play if they were cheap or free, that I wouldn't buy outright. I might be inclined to try the UFC game, or the new Dragon Age, some time down the road, but there's no way I'd buy them. I imagine most people have titles they would play but not at $60. If you can get them later from the vault using a subscription, then it's not a bad deal. Really depends how many games you buy and how many games you play for free to make the $30 worth it, but $30 is pretty cheap.

Sure, but that's an argument that it maybe might be an OK deal 2 years from now if it's still around and they did a good job adding to the Vault instead of withholding high value games like they are Titan Fall in favor of just dumping in the next round of expiring sports titles. In any case PS Plus is an awesome game discovery service that offers far more games in a year and has been around for a while now. If EA wants to monetize their old games they should keep taking lump sums from Sony to offer them in the Instant Game Collection rather than trying to build their own siloed service on top of PSN.
 
Proud to be a knuckle-dragging degenerate. NHL and FIFA are the best multiplayer games you can buy. They're the absolute best team games, period. If I had the time to play both, it would make this subscription an easy sell, because I'd likely end up getting another EA game over the following year.

Quick question. When it comes to the yearly sports titles, didn't EA start turning off the multiplayer for the previous title shortly after the release of the new one? Thus, FIFA/Madden 13 multiplayer is turned off shortly after the release of FIFA/Madden 14 to "encourage" upgrading. I may be misremembering since this is not something I partake of, but it seems to be a large component of the sports titles. If the most recent release for sports title A doesn't show up till after the season it is labeled for is over, how long do you get multiple player for if that "turn off" policy is still in force?
 
According to the message I got its an app. If I get time I'll take a look tonight.

Cheers. I'm very curious about the implementation vis-a-vis apps and games. I.e. Are they allowing an app (one OS) to initiate the download of code that'll run as a game (other OS).

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner.
 
Quick question. When it comes to the yearly sports titles, didn't EA start turning off the multiplayer for the previous title shortly after the release of the new one? Thus, FIFA/Madden 13 multiplayer is turned off shortly after the release of FIFA/Madden 14 to "encourage" upgrading. I may be misremembering since this is not something I partake of, but it seems to be a large component of the sports titles. If the most recent release for sports title A doesn't show up till after the season it is labeled for is over, how long do you get multiple player for if that "turn off" policy is still in force?

No, they don't turn them off that fast. I think when FIFA 14 comes out they might turn off FIFA 12. I think the previous year is still playable. Haven't looked into it.
 
And the PS4 is not a a free market, it´s a market 100% controlled by Sony.

They make decisions like that all the time. PlayStation Store is a curated marketplace. I think they're well within their right to tell EA to take a hike if they think it's a crappy deal and an even worse precedent.
I agree. It's just their message is a lie, saying they're protecting consumers from poor value. It's not really their job to protect consumers. By all means refuse access to a service, but don't expect me to swallow their excuse. ;) They don't want the competition.
 
They make decisions like that all the time. PlayStation Store is a curated marketplace. I think they're well within their right to tell EA to take a hike if they think it's a crappy deal and an even worse precedent.

This has nothing to do with curation as presumably these same games would be available individually through the PS Store. They're within their rights to do anything they want with the store but that doesn't change Shifty's point that they should allow the market (their customers) to decide if there's a value proposition here. If they think the deal is crappy, that's ok. If they think its a bad precedent, that's fine too. However, they've publicly stated that they've decided -for all their customers- there was no value in this subscription, that's why they are wrong.

According to the message I got its an app. If I get time I'll take a look tonight.

Would also be interested to know that if your EA account is linked to your XBL account, does this subscription follow the Gold model that lets anyone on the console play your games. I'm guessing not since the rights are controlled at the XBL level and not within an app but hopefully...
 
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Its nothing but a publisher controlled service similar to Gold or Plus and serves as competition against those two services.

Probably the only reason MS allowed it their hardware is because the XB1 is behind. Sony is sitting pretty right now with the PS4, so they have no reason to allow a competitor that would only encouraged EA to avoid putting their games on Plus.

The question becomes does MS see a piece of that $30 a year subscription and how big. Otherwise, its continued presence on the XB1 will be jeopardized the moment it becomes popular and MS wants a cut or a bigger cut.

These aren't free markets, the customers only gets to decide once the console manufacturers have given the okay since these type of services side step traditional licensing fees. Manufacturers will want some form of compensation.
 
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Maybe so, but you looking at the future. Its basically Netflix/cable subscription for games.

This is true. Subscriptions like this (and Netflix) carry no guarantees of content you'll definitely want to watch in any kind of volume. Usually they'll be some stuff but whether it's enough to justify the subscription will vary person to person.

From the Xbox : What should MS do next? *spawn thread.

If the EA Access trend continues with additional major publishers and Sony does not get on with it, I don't see the Xbox One losing the main market.

It's an interest point, how many of these subscriptions services at around $30/yr can the market sustain? Well users don't have to subscribe to them all - or any of them, but it's likely to appeal to people on a budget but with so many publishers, even subscribing to 3 or 4 starts adding up. You'd likely want Activision and Ubisoft, what about 2K and Rockstar? Namco and Bethesda?
 
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