EA Access Skipping PlayStation Because Sony Doesn’t Think It’s Good Value

Yesterday’s announcement of EA Access was an interesting one, as EA partnered up with Microsoft to give Xbox One owners a subscription-based model to gain access to some of their most popular games. Coming in at either £3.99 for a month or £19.99 for a whole year, you can get FIFA 14, Madden NFL 14, Peggle 2 and Battlefield 4, as well as early access to advanced game trials and 10% off digital purchases.

Alongside Games with Gold from Microsoft, it’s another attempt to emulate the successes of PlayStation Plus, and it seems that this competition could be the reason behind EA Access only coming to Xbox gamers. Speaking to Game Informer, a Sony representative said, “We evaluated the EA Access subscription offering and decided that it does not bring the kind of value PlayStation customers have come to expect.”

The Sony rep continued on to tout PS+, saying, “PlayStation Plus memberships are up more than 200% since the launch of PlayStation 4, which shows that gamers are looking for memberships that offer a multitude of services, across various devices, for one low price. We don’t think asking our fans to pay an additional $5 a month for this EA-specific program represents good value to the PlayStation gamer.”

It’s an interesting stance, but it’s also one that could have certain remifications for the games on PS+ going forward. With EA keen to push EA Access, its games would surely be much less likely to appear on PS+ in future, or focus more on their distant back catalogue. Meanwhile, ties between the publishing giant and Microsoft could become ever closer, following on from the timed exclusivity deals on PopCap games.

Source: Game Informer

24 Comments

  1. FIFA, Madden & Battlefield for £20 a year is infinitely better value than PS+, imo. I know people who solely play those games. Most people I know with PS+ just have a HDD full of average/poor games they’ll never play.

    • Also, fairly obviously, move online multiplayer into PS+ and it’s no surprise subscriptions are up since the launch of the PS4.

      • Really? My ps3 HDD is full of excellent AAA games that I cant keep up with. There are a few duds but the majority of them are very very good. PS Plus is incredible value for money imo. Even more so if you own all three platforms (ps3/ps4/ps vita).

      • Gotta agree with JR here, while I did initially join PS+ for the PS4, I really wish I’d joined earlier. There is a lot of content to be had in there and the online MP is just a small part of that..

    • Er, how? PS+ is £3.33 a month, you get two Vita games, two PS3 games and a PS4 game for that, plus online gaming on PS4, cloud storage etc. So far EA have listed just four titles, with no indication of when they we will be replaced. You could be stuck with those four games for a couple of months, or they may just chose to replace one game a month. How they rotate the games has yet to be specified, it might be every six months.

      • So that’s assuming you have a Vita & a PS3. Otherwise you just get Octodad (or similar) and online multiplayer that should really be free anyway. Brilliant.

    • I don’t play sport games so FIFA, Madden and the other franchises are pretty much dead to me, I wouldn’t play them unless my life depended on it. Battlefield on the other hand is nice and I play it a lot. But will these 20GBP/year include Battlefield Premium and all the DLC?

      I already have BF4 and a Premium account, so EA Access wouldn’t be something for me until the next release of a Battlefield game (not counting BF Hardline, wasn’t overly impressed by the beta – fun game but not fun enough to steal time away from BF4 IMHO).

    • That’s wholly dependent upon WHEN FIFA, Madden and Battlefield go into the Vault – there’s little to no point if FIFA 15, goes into the Vault in June 2015 – the majority of people actually interested in FIFA will have already bought it – they won;t wait for it to go into the Vault.

  2. Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head. It’ll be interesting to see if it strengthens their relationship to the point where it has an adverse effect on Sony’s platforms.

  3. To get this you’ll need to also have XBLGold. I don’t think I’ll miss anything on Ps as I am not a EA fan. Sounds like an attempt to kill off second-hand games.

  4. When I first read about this, it didnt seem great value to me, so I’m quite happy for Sony to not bother with it. I’m sure EA will remove games from the instant game collection anyway, as it would’ve interfered with this, but I personally wont miss them.

    Its been a long time since I played a decent EA published game, and come to think of it, most of the big 3 (EA, Ubi & Activision*)are going in directions I’m really not interested in so I’m quite happy to ditch them. Sony has plenty of first party teams to keep me entertained..

    *Destiny is the one exception from Activision, but I’m not 100% on that, I just really liked the beta. It may still turn into another “Titanfall”.

  5. I’m quite confused, why not just let EA do it and let people decide? Sounds like EA want platform holders to pay them for it.

    • I assume because it’s made available via PSN, people might assume Sony are a part of it and they don’t want to be associated.

    • Also maybe because it’s competition to Plus?
      I think Plus is very good value but EA Access could have been good too.

  6. It would compete with PS+ which is the logical reason Sony has rejected it. Also with a huge amunt of games being more online oriented nowadays and making PS+ required for online play, its not hard to see why PS+ has had such a big jump in interest.

    Alot of people just see 4 games but they need to remember PS+ was only 1 game a month when it was first initiated and wasn’t a success in the slightest. Also the games being offered on PS+ of late have been poor at best, especially for PS4 and Vita owners, PS3 offering is pleasing though.

    People who have too much pride will look for any positive to this not being on the Playstation platform but the fact is its offering 4 widely loved titles for just £19.99 and the title selection will only grow going forward.

  7. Hope this doesn’t have bad ramifications for Sony. We like to have a variety in our games but some people really just play those EA games. Just don’t want Sony to lose field here.
    Does this mean we will not have EA games with PS+ for the next 2-3 years ?
    What were they thinking ? I mean, just take the CoD and Battlefield war for example ? CoD players were all Xbox owners right ? An opportunity would have been to take Battlefield and promote it heavy on the PS4 and make people take the jump.

  8. My brother made an interesting point and wondered if Ubisoft could do the same with PlayStation.
    It’s probably very unlikely but I’d be more interested in an Ubisoft themed promotion over an EA one.
    Then again Ubisoft have been good at releasing their titles on Plus so it’s probably pointless.

  9. Personally not for me. I know that plenty of people would be satisfied playing NFL, FIFA, and BF year after year but those are the same people who usually buy those on day on so they still wouldn’t benefit from Access.

  10. We’ve had EA games on PS+ before. If this thing had launched on PS4 as well as the XBone, that would have probably put an end to that. So to get those games, you’d have to have PS+ and this EA thing as well.

    Sony rejecting it (or not being willing to give EA a big sack of money as MS obviously have done) doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t get EA games with PS+. If Sony offer EA enough, they might just let them have them.

    Of course, EA might also turn round and say “no, we want to charge people even more for that”. Which is where Sony might be right on it not being good value. If EA can do it, then someone else does. And then they all do it. So you end up paying for PS+ and all the other schemes. Which sounds like it could get expensive very quickly. Better to stick with PS+, really.

    The only question (which we probably won’t get an answer to) is what the deal MS have done is? How much did they pay EA? Given the way the PS4 seems to be selling so well and the XBone is failing, no matter what MS do, have EA just said “big sack of cash? Yes, thankyou. We’ll churn out a few half-arsed ports of the PS4 versions for that”. But what conditions have MS attached? PS4 versions can’t be better than XBone versions? EA games can’t appear in any other service?

    If we don’t get EA games on PS+ from now, it’s either EA sulking about Sony turning them down, or MS offering enough money to stop it happening. Which might be a paranoid conspiracy, but it’s the sort of thing MS have done in the past, and they must be getting desperate to rescue the XBone by now.

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