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EA announces Subscription Service for Xbox One ($5/month or $30/year, get game vault)

This is awesome for all the GAFers that are going digital. You could bunch all your EA purchases to one month, pay a $4.99 sub purchase the games you want and cancel.

And to the people who are wondering about why they aren't doing this on the PS4: it probably has something to do with a better online service that allows for this sort of thing. Rest assured, this will eventually come to the PS4.
 
Far Cry 4 has a deal with Sony on PS3/4 for the "keys to Kyrat" co-op mode with friends who don't own the game.

Sony has that, I'm sure it wasn't free for them.

MS have this deal with EA, its just competition.

Yup and it's both a waste of money but at least Sony actually puts effort into their first party. MS had all last gen to do so and they didn't, they don't seem to have learned their lesson in that department yet.


Anyways, good deal if yours into sports, otherwise it feels like a waste
 
Hmm... Like PS Plus it all depends on the games on offer. Certainly doesn't seem to include brand new games (as expected) Once again they've also bet on the wrong horse (PS4 and PC being cut out makes no sense).

Is this what the industry is going to become though? All the publishers requiring subscriptions? :/
 
Yes, EA got you to buy a full priced digital title for $1 off in exchange for one month access to an old back catalog of games that aren't bringing in any more substantial revenue. Pretty clever IMO.

Also I wonder if the $30 is a mistake? Weird that EA doesn't mention it. If Xbox Wire doesn't mention it then I think IGN was mistaken.
What are you taking about that they don't mention it? It's in the third to the bottom paragraph pretty clearly on their announcement post. http://www.ea.com/news/ea-announces-ea-access-on-xbox-one
 
This must be some sort of timed exclusive/beta-test. There is no good reason why EA shouldn't expand this to Playstation or Nintendo. They don't want to leave any money on the table.
 
So basically services like PS+ or that MS pendant (sorry, forgot the name) are now getting content pulled away from them that is put into a separate subscription? I don't really like that idea, this could get rather messy if other publishers follow.
 
It's certainly an alternative for the consumer. Whether it's worthwhile remains to be seen, IMO. It's not evident, to me, just by looking at the terms. If you, for example, take advantage of the discount on new digital releases, then as those games get added to the vault, the value of having access to the "vault" diminishes a bit. But having a larger collection of unplayed games in your "vault" is obviously good for other consumers. Don't really think it's as good as PS+ though.
 
sweet jesus a subscription on top of a subscription. and outside of dragon age none of those games are worth it. what has gaming become? *kicks dirt*
 
Sounds pretty decent to me. I'd probably just drop a $5 when different games hit the vault and play them for a month. Seems like a good way to get my Battlefield fill after the game has been fixed so many months after releases.
 
wow seems like a good deal and the coolest thing EA has done since they published the origina Dungeon Keeper. Will wait to see what games are in the vault thou..
 
So basically services like PS+ or that MS pendant (sorry, forgot the name) are now getting content pulled away from them that is put into a separate subscription? I don't really like that idea, this could get rather messy if other publishers follow.

That's the real story here. PS+ and GWG just got worse.
 
I didn't buy BF, Madden, and Peggle, for instance.
I always buy Fifa the day it's out, already have Fifa 14.

So for 30 bucks: I'll pay 54 bucks for Fifa, get it a week early; pay 54 usd for DA, get it a week early; I'll play BF and Madden and Peggle (and anything else they offer) for 1 year.

So I'll actually pay 18 dollars for a year of BF3, Madden 25 and Peggle 2 access, and early access for Fifa and Dragon Age.

How is it bad?

You saved $6 on digital only year old titles where you could have saved much more just buying the disc used...
 
Interesting idea, not for me though. I wish EA would use it for Origin as an added perk and then put their games back on Steam as extra goodwill.
 
If you can pay month-to-month, I'll just do that when a game comes out on the service that I want to play (like DA3). Seems pretty cool if that is actualy an option, I will totally beat DA3 within a month's time.

Don't really care about sports/online shooters, so this wouldn't make sense for me to pay a yearly sub for.
 
For $30 a year, isn't this a no-brainer for anyone the buys annual sports franchises or battlefield?

For the 10% discount? Yeah I'd say so, assuming you are buying a couple of them anyway.

It makes sense for EA because they get people to buy their yearly sports franchises *digitally*, so they don't have to deal with people trading in Madden when the season ends.


I think people getting this only to play the free games might be a bit disappointed, I can't imagine they'll have titles much newer than a year old available at any point. Maybe the sports titles will be a bit quicker, they can add Madden or NBA to the service as soon as the season ends without cannibalizing sales much because people don't tend to buy sports games except during the season (especially at launch).
 
Is this what the industry is going to become though? All the publishers requiring subscriptions? :/
I doubt it, for the reasons I noted before:

I don't purchase enough EA games to justify a subscription model, but I don't see the problem with this. Movies have diversified from theater-only runs to video, VOD, Blu-Ray, cable and network screenings, Netflix, etc. There's no reason why games shouldn't employ similar options. If it allows more developers and publishers to stay alive, that's fine with me. Now, if this morphs into the only way to access EA titles, it's cutting off the nose to spite the face. Either way, I'm not invested in either the platform or the publisher, so this will be interesting to watch from afar.
why not? just don't subscribe and buy your games the regular way if you don't like it.
^^ this.
 
Sounds pretty decent to me. I'd probably just drop a $5 when different games hit the vault and play them for a month. Seems like a good way to get my Battlefield fill after the game has been fixed so many months after releases.

See, this makes sense.
To use the service as a one month rental.
I still don't see any reason to be locked into their yearly sub or for my day-1 BF purchases.
 
If you can pay month-to-month, I'll just do that when a game comes out on the service that I want to play (like DA3). Seems pretty cool if that is actualy an option, I will totally beat DA3 within a month's time.

By the time it comes to the service you could have gotten gamefly and beat the game. Are you willing to wait close to a year for DA3?
 
If you can pay month-to-month, I'll just do that when a game comes out on the service that I want to play (like DA3). Seems pretty cool if that is actualy an option, I will totally beat DA3 within a month's time.

IGN said "access to trials of new EA games nearly a week before they come out". This means, you will get to play ~ first few hours of the game and then your progress will be stopped.


They are NOT gonna give full unlocked trials of brand new upcoming games to every subscriber. Anyone who wishes for that is delusional.
 
I don't get this.

  • Get discount on new games
  • Get to play old games that don't move units anymore
  • Pay monthly or per year

How is this a good deal? It's basicly EA giving you the chance to pay money to play games you don't want to buy because noone plays them. The discount on new games is most likely a chance to hook customers. Perhaps I'm a bit sceptic but this is not good for the consumer. If anything EA has proven that the consumer is their sworn enemy.
 
For $30 a year, isn't this a no-brainer for anyone the buys annual sports franchises or battlefield?

Don't most people that buy annual sports franchises buy the newest one and not the year old one?

They are NOT gonna give full unlocked trials of brand new upcoming games to every subscriber. Anyone who wishes for that is delusional.
The old EA season pass for sports games unlocked the full game about 5 days early, but you had to have preordered the game.
 
IGN said "access to trials of new EA games nearly a week before they come out". This means, you will get to play ~ first few hours of the game and then your progress will be stopped.


They are NOT gonna give full unlocked trials of brand new upcoming games to every subscriber. Anyone who wishes for that is delusional.

Ahh, nm then. I'm out. I'll just pick up DA3 on the PC at some point if it reviews well.

Xbox One only? Someone please explain this logic

Part of me wants to say moneyhatting w/ MS, but Sony has their PSNow service coming, so I'm wondering if EA has different plans for the Playstation platform because of that.
 
IGN said "access to trials of new EA games nearly a week before they come out". This means, you will get to play ~ first few hours of the game and then your progress will be stopped.


They are NOT gonna give full unlocked trials of brand new upcoming games to every subscriber. Anyone who wishes for that is delusional.

how does what you said have anything to do with what he said.

he buys the subscription, buys the full price game he wanted, makes his money back, owns the game, and gets to play from the vault for a month.
 
Yup and it's both a waste of money but at least Sony actually puts effort into their first party. MS had all last gen to do so and they didn't, they don't seem to have learned their lesson in that department yet.


Anyways, good deal if yours into sports, otherwise it feels like a waste

MS opened Black Tusk, Team Dakota, Lift London and bought Twisted Pixel and press Play.

LL are doing mobile stuff so fair enough, BT are on Gears and all the others have shipped games and making new ones.

They also said they have some other new studios but not officially unveiled which depending on what they are could be a nice bonus.

And despite all that, MS have still released a large amount of games on XB1 so far. Long term they do need more internal studios but its not like they don't have any games. Plenty announced and coming
 
IGN said "access to trials of new EA games nearly a week before they come out". This means, you will get to play ~ first few hours of the game and then your progress will be stopped.


They are NOT gonna give full unlocked trials of brand new upcoming games to every subscriber. Anyone who wishes for that is delusional.

Think he meant, waiting until it is added to the vault.
 
lol no. They will give out as old games as possible, those whose purchases are dropped way down, or whose presence can boost sales of upcoming titles.

Indeed. However it would be interesting to see how they price their games outside of this on each platform that the service comes to. Would they try to forcefully push the subscription service over individual purchase of older games that are usually deep discounted? If they did, would people be as accepting of that? Would new games sales fall as people wait for it on subscription? How would that affect profitability for them? etc etc. It will be interesting to see how all that turns out. Particularly if this subscription type service popped onto Origin
 
It seems like a good service at first but doesn't seem good once you think about it. $30 nets you 4 games that will likely stay there a year but if majority of these games are sports , its kinda useless. New releases of sports game is what fans buy and EA shutters online of previous games. The 10% off digital sounds good but it should be 20% to make it more attractive. The week early trial is not of my interest. Its just a week. But if you have money to throw around, makes sense to test it I guess.
 
Xbox One only? Someone please explain this logic

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