During last week's Gamescom convention,
GameSpot interviewed Electronic Arts' chief operating officer Peter Moore. For sports fans (especially those owning a PlayStation 4), the most interesting part of this discussion came when Moore was asked if Electronic Arts had any plans for bringing the surprisingly successful EA Access program to Sony's system.
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"Let's switch to EA Access, which a lot of people think offers a good deal.
Peter Moore: I think it offers a great deal.
Do you still want to see EA Access on PlayStation 4?
Peter Moore: Doesn't matter. It's on Xbox One, and those customers love it. We have analytics on everything these days, and subscriber satisfaction rates are through the roof. EA Access customers get to play more, because of the Vault, they get to play early, ahead of general release date, and they get to pay less because of the discounts it offers.
So, consumers love it. It's doing well. If you expand to another console, business will be even better, right?
Peter Moore: But it's not. It's on Xbox One.
I'm curious about what you're saying. Is this part of a deal with Microsoft now?
Peter Moore: It's on Xbox One-
[Interrupting] Do you want to talk about this?
Peter Moore: Well Sony talked about it, ask them [laughs]. There's not much left for me to say." |
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Moore's last line is a reference to Game Informer's
infamous quote from an anonymous Sony representative who claimed that, "We evaluated the EA Access subscription offering and decided that it does not bring the kind of value PlayStation customers have come to expect. 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."
The "value" of a $5-per-month subscription ($30 for the year) was certainly questionable when Sony made its original statement on July 30, 2014. But as EA's downloadable game vault has been expanded to include the entire EA Sports catalog, and the company's pre-release trial period has been extended to 10 hours, EA Access has arguably become a better value for sports gamers than Sony's own PlayStation Plus program.
Sony's PlayStation 4 was the clear choice of a new generation when it and the Xbox One debuted during 2013's holiday shopping season. But since most sports titles look and play similarly on each console, and Xbox One owners finally have a good hardball option in
Super Mega Baseball, I have mostly run out of reasons why I would recommend a PlayStation 4 over an Xbox One to someone looking for the best place to play console sports games (sup, Rocket League).