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[Lionheart]

I think Sony is afraid EA will stop putting games on PS Plus if they allow EA Access, because if I were an EA Access subscriber, I'd find it weird to be entitled to a game twice if it ends up in both places, so I wouldn't expect EA games on other game subscriptions anymore.

Perhaps they'll start offering their own extended Plus subscriptions some time later. I'd be more interested in genre specific subscription packages than in publisher specific packages. Like, let me pay $2 a month for an additional Plus game each month in a genre of my choice. Then again, I'd be even more wary to buy any new games in that genre...

 

[Roxas]

I like that Sony can read my mind and can make my decisions for me now.

awesome

 

[Marcel]

God forbid people just agree with their statement. Got to be a fanboy for that right. Ugh..

It's a bit fanboyish to buy into the "we made the choice to protect you, the gamer" line of bullshit PR from a company who wants to take your money with similar services, yes.

 

[Krilekk]

I swore off EA games so this doesn't affect me one way or another, but I understand why Sony wouldn't want a to support a service that could compete with PSN+ and PS Now. A possible upside is that Sony will make PSN+ and PS Now more attractive (more games on +, lower cost for Now).

PSN+ is attractive already because it's mandatory for multiplayer. PS Now prices are still in beta but I imagine they will stay on the high side because that's an easy way for them to control access numbers.

 

[Rurunaki]

What is the shit you're referring too? All I've seen EA do last gen is pre-order/early adopter DLC and season passes for their games. Selling extra content to people who want it is nothing out of the ordinary by industry standards now. How does this equate to EA selling gimped versions at retail and requiring a subscription to access the full game?

And you see nothing wrong with DLCs and season passes? Contents that should already be included in the game being removed becoming a standard practice just to nickle and dime the consumers. Alright then.

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

Thank you. This is what's bothering me. Why does EA need to have their "OWN" service instead of just working with Sony and MS to provide "Awesome Value." i.e. people with PS+ and Live Gold will have the early access and duscount whilst they take a share from Sony and MS. Why not put their games on Steam for that awesome value as well? There is a catch to this Vault their pushing and I want to k ow what it is.

Yup. It's just EA and their corporate greed seeping out of this scheme. Wanting a piece of every single pie out there in the industry.

I mean they could of done this completely different like you say by offering an extra subscription within PSplus & games with gold where EA games will be significantly discounted within the xbox/psn stores whilst paying a subscription to EA. Rather than making their own subscription services completely separate.

Plenty of ways round this to benefit the consumer but no, this is EA we are talking about here.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Sony shitted on themselves with that statement.

Hmm well no. They took a stance that we have no idea is a good or bad one. Seeing as this EA access is still an exclusive and has no number of people who are paying for it, sure it's bad but until we see its impact, what are we really arguing in favor for.

 

[redcrayon]

Good. I don't want to see this publisher subscription system grow into the norm. A future where every publisher has their own subscription service sounds expensive. Eventually subscription exclusives will become a thing and that sounds terrible.

I agree with this, I don't want a subscription per company on top of one per store. Even if they are technically good value it seems like a lot of juggling to do if I have to manage several or just want one for a few weeks. They'll all be on auto-renew and be an arse to unsubscribe from too, I imagine.

I can understand why EA want more control over their back catalogue when they have invested a lot of money in it, but i like to keep things simple with one overarching package for a good price per year rather than being bled dry by half a dozen subscriptions all wanting a few pounds. Like FTP games, all that stuff adds up.

Much as I like PS+, I do think it's poor form for Sony to openly comment about the value of another company's digital service.

 

[mclem]

Can't see why they'd pass on an optional subscription that provides a good value but eh.

My hunch is that EA are playing the two manufacturers off against each other to get the best possible deal without actually denying their games to one or the other system and losing that potential audience. It would not surprise me if there's some other consideration that's coming into play that we're not privy to - for instance, what if Microsoft are offering a very generous licensing deal to secure the service, and EA pressuring Sony to offer them a competitive deal which Sony weren't interested in?

All this makes me think back to the old 'always online' stuff that was part of the original plan for the Xbox One, and it makes me suspicious - at the time I strongly felt that those plans were heavily influenced by the big publishers like EA, which is why I was somewhat surprised when, at around the time the 180 occurred, they were very adamant that they hadn't asked for it. And yet, now, we have a similar premise (admittedly in a much more consumer-friendly format, but the restrictions involved are along similar lines), and it's suddenly and unexpectedly Xbox exclusive.

That's a coincidence that I find intriguing. It may simply be a coincidence, but I do strongly suspect that this service does in some way relate to the aborted original plans for the Xbox One.

 

[Niven]

Eh. I see legitimate concerns for the future and an overpopulated market of subscrption services. I see more hate for EA than love for Sony in this thread IMO.

Tv and film market is doing fine with all it's subscription and blu ray and DVD are also doing fine just adds more options

 

[Nightengale]

But that isn't the main issue, the main issue is the publisher precedent. Because there *are* certain big publishers that do contribute a fair amount to PS+ and its perceived quality could change if more and more publishers start offering their own separate service, because suddenly Sony would have fewer partners to look to to make each months PS+ proposition tempting to new and existing subscribers.

My thoughts exactly.

Imagine EA games stop being on Plus, even for discount. Then Ubisoft. Then Take2.

This is what I feel Sony is concerned about.

 

[Canis lupus]

What's wrong with having them as an option to? We are not forced in to anything just offering different people different alternatives

Other publishers will only do it if EA's service is successful, and it will only be successful if consumers CHOOSE to purchase the service. Consumer choice, a good thing

And what's wrong with that if they all offer the same kind of EA Access does?

If Ubi launched an access service and most of their games were available for a similar price to access (£20 for the year), how is that bad for gamers?

Because it sucks having to subscribe to dozens of different subscriptions and I'm not gonna do it to get the same benefit from them all. EA is letting you play some select games, betas and giving other little incentives? There is an umbrella service called PS+ which should cover everything, EA Ubisoft etc can have their own section or sales under 1 encompassing subscription. Everyone starting their own little service means the consumer will pay more which is a bad thing. Having choice and options isn't always a good thing.

 

[FranXico]

Ok... That explains it then.

Sony just opted out of it to keep competition to PS+ out of their own network.

Bloody idiots.

 

[PuppetMaster]

I'm less surprised Sony declined EA. And much more surprised MS accepted. MS must be more desperate than I thought. MS basically giving EA their lunch money.

 

[BokehKing]

So we're not allowed to see for ourselves if it represents good value?

Maybe they don't like the way it's structured?

I wouldn't want to hop in bed with EA either, I mean EA Is Orgin right? . Yeah no thanks

Imagine Titanfall 2 is multi plat, Sony has this service from EA fans are paying for, and yet Microsoft still gets exclusive content first (I can see EA doing something like that, I can see EA doing a lot of things)

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

I'm glad that Sony isn't doing this and I hope it fails on the Xbox One. I don't want the ownership of games to be further eroded away by multiple publishers coming up with subscriptions. How long until we get "multiplayer only with EA Vault subscription" or even worse "[this game is] only available with an EA Vault subscription"?

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

It's a bit fanboyish to buy into the "we made the choice to protect you, the gamer" line of bullshit PR from a company who wants to take your money with similar services, yes.

I don't 100% agree with their statement. Neither do I like the whole Apple approach of telling me what I want. However I can see why they don't want it because as others have said, it directly competes with PS+.

 

[Principate]

My thoughts exactly.

Imagine EA games stop being on Plus, even for discount. Then Ubisoft. Then Take2.

This is what I feel Sony is concerned about.

Couldn't that happen anyway now. I'm not how saying no to a publishers plans is going to them to keep their partners for plus.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Because it sucks having to subscribe to dozens of different subscriptions and I'm not gonna do it to get the same benefit from them all. EA is letting you play some select games, betas and giving other little incentives? There is an umbrella service called PS+ which should cover everything, EA Ubisoft etc can have their own section or sales under 1 encompassing subscription. Everyone starting their own little service means the consumer will pay more which is a bad thing. Having choice and options isn't always a good thing.

Having choice is 100% a damn good thing

 

[FranXico]

My thoughts exactly.

Imagine EA games stop being on Plus, even for discount. Then Ubisoft. Then Take2.

This is what I feel Sony is concerned about.

Well, this way those companies will start doing this on Xbox anyway, and still refuse PS+ discounts or rentals. This is even worse, both for them and their costumers.

 

[Paz]

I like that Sony can read my mind and can make my decisions for me now.

awesome

They do this every day with hundreds of services, games, concepts, etc. As do Nintendo, as do Microsoft.

These are not open platforms, and they shouldn't be. They could very well be right that services like this from EA will be a bad thing for the PlayStation user base, they could also be wrong, but assuming that more options in everything = better is a bad mindset.

 

[KyleCross]

So let me get this straight; Sony decided to refuse a huge publisher to have a service on the PS4 that offers free games and discounts for $30 a year because they just want people to use PS+ as they don't consider EA Access to not be as good of a value?

 

[CecilRousso]

I'm sort of puzzled by people arguing in favor of closed systems. Competition can sometimes be a good thing for you, the first-world consumer. I know EA is the town whipping boy and rightfully so but it's pretty obvious that Sony is just protecting what's theirs.

The consoles are actually still closed systems, no matter if the EA Access program is allowed or not.

And there are things like competition that's not good for you as customer.

 

[Huddy]

PS Plus for PS4 sucks ! there is no any big, valuable games so STFU Sony
I prefer to pay more 30-40$ for a plus membership like PS3

We have a winner!

 

[Jito]

And you see nothing wrong with DLCs and season passes? Contents that should already be included in the game being removed becoming a standard practice just to nickle and dime the consumers. Alright then.

No I see nothing wrong with most DLC and season passes actually. The argument that DLC is just content removed from the game has been proven wrong time and time again. I like getting extra content for games I enjoy, fuck me right? It's ok if you do not but I don't understand why you would begrudge others for their choice.

 

[Darmik]

Thank you. This is what's bothering me. Why does EA need to have their "OWN" service instead of just working with Sony and MS to provide "Awesome Value." i.e. people with PS+ and Live Gold will have the early access and duscount whilst they take a share from Sony and MS. Why not put their games on Steam for that awesome value as well? There is a catch to this Vault their pushing and I want to k ow what it is.

Why don't Valve put their games on Origin or GOG? It's not like there's some insane catch with Origin outside of it not being Steam. Why are you holding them to different standards? What 'catch' are you expecting there to be?

 

[erawsd]

No and that's the huge misconception with the service. It's a service that will be able to play all games via the cloud. It has been doc as this service they are offering just to play last gen titles when they have never even said that. However, I don't see how EA can't have cut a deal with Sony down the road to offer this, but seeing as EA wants more of the cut, they will not do it within PS now. It's like the Netflix and HBO, Showtime etc situation. They basically pulled their own shows to start their own sub services which you still need the approved ISP to watch.

Yeah, this def puts EA is an interesting position.

It was an easy move for HBO and Showtime because users can access their content just as easily as Netflix itself. In this case, EA has to agree to some PSNow/PS+ deal or forfeit the alternate revenue entirely.

 

[PJV3]

Suprised people are defending sony on this one.

But fanboys gotta fanboy.

I don't care about Sony, I'm wary of EA and other publishers developing money lust and turning console gaming into a chore of hoop jumping. If it works out well on the xbox and my worries are unfounded then I will have a change of heart.

I don't trust the fuckers after the start of this gen.

 

[Marcel]

Tv and film market is doing fine with all it's subscription and blu ray and DVD are also doing fine just adds more options

Yes. I'm not sure why people think that more people getting in the game is just going to straight collapse the market. This was an inevitability and again, competition is not a bad thing. Just because it's from the guy you don't like doesn't mean it won't be a net positive eventually. If the EA Access gets popular, maybe Sony has to try harder and give more to the consumer. Sounds good to me.

 

[Blobbers]

I'm with Sony on this one. Like other people have already said, it'll only be a matter of time before other companies try the same thing. Sony is nipping this in the bud.
In this particular instance, consumer choice is a bad thing, because you can't trust EA fans to just refuse to use "EA access". For years now we've been saying "Vote with your wallets and don't buy EA products anymore if you don't want half-assed games like BF4, Need For Speed locked at 30 fps, Sim City 2014 fiasco, Dead Space 3 and its misplaced priorities..."

Guess what? People still buy EA products. Even after the mess that was Dragon Age 2, people bought Mass Effect 3. Even after the mess that was Mass Effect 3, people are getting hyped for DA: Inquisition.

So no, I don't blame Sony. If they allowed this, people would be subscribing in droves even though EA has time and time again proven their incompetence in the gaming industry.
EA Access would blossom and then other companies would surely follow.

 

[Apt101]

PSN+ is attractive already because it's mandatory for multiplayer. PS Now prices are still in beta but I imagine they will stay on the high side because that's an easy way for them to control access numbers.

Multiplayer is definitely a perk of the service, but back in May Sony reported that only "approximately half" of PS4 owners are subscribers. So it's obviously not attractive enough to millions.

I'm not sure what you mean about access numbers. Are you suggesting Sony are worried about capacity?

 

[meppi]

Having choice is 100% a damn good thing

You still have the choice of buying an Xbox over a PS4, so no one is taking the choice away from you.

Suprised people are defending sony on this one.

But fanboys gotta fanboy.

Lopping everyone who doesn't want this shit on any system in the the Sony fanboy club, is is a bit rich don't you think?
The people who know me, know damn sure I'm anything but a Sony fanboy.
I go where the games take me with the companies that doesn't try to fuck me over. And that changes from gen to gen, just like it did this time.

 

[barit]

I do think it's cute that you all think Good Guy Sony is just looking out for you guys, though. <3

Everyone who saves us from EA scam is a Good Guy

 

[Marcel]

The consoles are actually still closed systems, no matter if the EA Access program is allowed or not.

And there are things like competition that's not good for you as customer.

Um, what? You know competition typically makes companies offer BETTER value, right? To maintain viability and visibility in a crowded market? Being cheaper or offering better games than the other guy means you go to them.

 

[Birgitte2004]

Three strikes, YOU'RE OUT!

Apparently not, since the Xbox One and Microsoft had far more than three strikes this gen yet here we are.

 

[Rebel Leader]

Everyone who saves us from EA scam is a Good Guy

I like this junior


I'm very skeptical in anything EA is involved in

Save me from corporations, corporation!

I would like it stricken from record that I said I liked this junior and be replaced with this user.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

If anyone seriously believes Sony saying no to this will stop the practice entirely is in for a shock.

 

[DryvBy]

Not the right call at all from Sony, give the consumers the choice.

Here's my thing with this: if one developer is allowed to do it, and others follow suit, how long until Plus isn't even a value anymore? Part of the benefit of Plus is the free games per month. Imagine if every developer wanted to do their own version of Plus.

 

[Marcel]

Everyone who saves us from EA scam is a Good Guy

Save me from corporations, corporation!

 

[PairOfFilthySocks]

Service wars are kicking off.

 

[iceatcs]

The consoles are actually still closed systems, no matter if the EA Access program is allowed or not.

Yep, that's why EA have to partnership with MS to allow access Xbox service.

Sony will be difficult one because of using 3rd party server farm.

 

[CecilRousso]

Having choice is 100% a damn good thing

Even when that choice actually means that things that we're included in the service that was already pretty much mandatory, is cut and put in another service? Because that's where the EA Access program wants to go.

Um, what? You know competition typically makes companies offer BETTER value, right? To maintain viability and visibility in a crowded market? Being cheaper or offering better games than the other guy means you go to them.

You will have to make it look like that yes.

 

[KHlover]

“We evaluated the EA Access subscription offering and decided that it does not bring the kind of value PlayStation customers have come to expect,” a Sony representative told us via email. “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.”

I'm sure Sony has well-paid analysts that are a million times more competent in analyzing this stuff than I am, but I still can't get rid of the feeling that locking online multiplayer behind PS+ just might have helped pushing PS+ tremendously.

 

[PuppetMaster]

People actually expecting kindness and graciousness from EA of all places need to learn their history.

EA's motive are not toward value for gamers. They want to make money. Period.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

I don't care about Sony, I'm wary of EA and other publishers developing money lust and turning console gaming into a chore of hoop jumping. If it works out well on the xbox and my worries are unfounded then I will have a change of heart.

I don't trust the fuckers after the start of this gen.

The thing about it as well is, what if other companies feel like their catalogs are worth more for the price of entry? Say Rockstar for instance creates their own and they feel like their franchises are worth more than $30 a year and decide they want $60 for the year, then what? Activision could do the same and want $80 a year, with access as well to Diablo and WoW. It becomes very questionable at some point.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Here's my thing with this: if one developer is allowed to do it, and others follow suit, how long until Plus isn't even a value anymore? Part of the benefit of Plus is the free games per month. Imagine if every developer wanted to do their own version of Plus.

Exactly. If this is a success (it will be) it won't be long until Activision et all come along with similar services.

 

[Guymelef]

Should a Xbox Live owner not interested in paying for more services be happy knowing that EA is out of Games With Live?

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Tv and film market is doing fine with all it's subscription and blu ray and DVD are also doing fine just adds more options

Hey, I'm all for it if it doesn't jeopardize the future of my physical ownership of my games. Netflix ect can coexist with DVDs and Blu Rays for the time being but I can see this being one more step in the all digital future of gaming.

 

[Mael]

I'm already not paying for subscription for my gaming needs I won't be paying for EA's offer either.
If people are happy to have companies treating them like walking wallets good for them though.
Sony's answer is BS though but less BS than MSFT allowing that.
If I wanted a mess of subscription services gated and walled for gaming I'd boot up my PC.

Exactly. If this is a success (it will be) it won't be long until Activision et all come along with similar services.

That doesn't look like ATVI, Ubisoft on the other hand...

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

So let me get this straight; Sony decided to refuse a huge publisher to have a service on the PS4 that offers free games and discounts for $30 a year because they just want people to use PS+ as they don't consider EA Access to not be as good of a value?

But EA access doesn't discourage Ps+ adoption. If anything it encourages it since online play is pretty big in EA titles.

I do agree that EA Access seems like very good offer for people who buy those yearly sports games.