EA Announces Access Subscription Service For Xbox One

Well, here’s an interesting way for a publisher to deliver games – EA have just announced a partnership with Microsoft which will give Xbox One owners access to subscription-based service named EA Access offering many of EA’s games for a monthly or annual fee.

It’s something akin to PlayStation Plus, though with EA games, and subscriptions start from £3.99, with an annual membership for the low cost of £19.99. The beta will be rolling out very soon, and then it’ll be available for all Xbox One owners in the near future.

FIFA 14, Madden NFL 14, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4 are the first four games available in the beta phase, and these can be played “with the click of a button” (though presumably after a download, rather than streaming). Subscribers will also be able to save 10% on EA games purchased through the Xbox Games Store.

Furthermore, trials for games such as Madden NFL 15, NHL 15, FIFA 15, NBA Live 15, and Dragon Age: Inquisition will be available five days before general release. These trials will be more substantial than demos it seems, with your progress carrying over to the full game upon purchase.

This seems like a really good idea, and hopefully it’ll make its way to PlayStation platforms, though perhaps due to the similarities to Sony’s own service, we won’t be seeing it any time soon. Also, does this perhaps mean that we won’t be seeing EA games on PS+ in the future? Only time will tell.

13 Comments

  1. So how exactly will this work? Will it be like PS+ where the games are yours to keep while you are sub’d? Because 20 quid to be able to play FIFA, Battlefield, all the AAA games for around half the price of a single game is an incredible deal.

    Or is it that the games rotate each month or so, so you could say play whatever games are on offer for the month and then fork out the money if you want to continue playing them? To me that seems more likely otherwise EA would be losing so much money.

  2. 20 quid a year and you get to play whichever games they let you play that month, as long as you keep playing? That’s assuming it works like that, and not like PS+. For that price, they can’t give you the games permanently, as long as you pay, can they?

    But it doesn’t matter, since it’s “in partnership with Microsoft”, so it’s never going to come to the PS4 is it? Not sure how much money they’ll make of XBone users though. Couple of hundred quid? ;)

  3. Interesting, needs more solid details of how it’s all going to work but sounds like a good deal on the face of it.

  4. “EA reserves the right to change and update the EA Access Services, and the EA Content offered through the EA Access Services without any liability to you. In particular, Vault Titles are subject to change and may be removed, and the online services for certain Vault Titles may be discontinued. In the event that EA changes the EA Access Services, including the removal of Vault Titles or discontinuation of online services for certain Vault Titles, we will provide thirty (30) days advance notice to you by posting a notice on http://www.ea.com/eaaccess.”

    So they can remove stuff when they like.

    Also of interest.. “Please note, the purchase of an EA Access subscription is made with Microsoft and not EA.”

    • Couldn’t of said it any better :)

  5. This is confusing as surely it’ll end up with a high percentage of Xbox owners playing games that are at least a year old through their subscription & not buying new games as they may as well hang on a year & get them through the subscription & so forth. Either that, or they buy new games then cancel their subscription a year later a they’ve already got them.
    Sounds like a gradual transfer to only subscription games to cater for people with poor or no internet

  6. Anybody else feel the old line of ‘Xbox Live Gold subscription is required….’ will be brought out nearer the time?!?

  7. It’s an interesting idea – though one that needs some further explanation.

    You buy the access through Microsoft, so is it likely that Microsoft have simply bought the rights from EA and will use the subscription cost to recoup what they’ve outlayed? And if so, isn’t that similar to Games With Gold?

  8. Hopefully we’ll have all the details by the time Dragon Age is out, as that’s the only EA game I’m interested in this year.

  9. This could be quite tempting at that price. I presume the “purchase of a sub is with Microsoft” just means because you’ll be buying it from the xbox store.

  10. When it would announce that service of hdmi converting fuction for xobx one like http://bit.ly/RNWs3H

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