EA announces a subscription service for Xbox One

[Lil Frier]

Agreed, and that's my perspective. Creating an Origin account offers me no benefit, it's a pointless (on my end) layer of inconvenience so they can acquire personal information and probably send me spend or sell it to those who can or whatever (by providing an e-mail address linked to the LIVE and Origin accounts).

If I have to be inconvenienced, I expect something for it. That's not offered, so I've just opted to not buy and EA games so far. Been close to buying NFS: Rivals a couple of times, but it sold out before I could buy it. This service, however, it finally looks like something with the potential to offer a good-enough deal to accept the negatives.

 

[clok1966]

http://www.ea.com/news/ea-announces-ea-access-on-xbox-one


Announcing EA Access for Xbox One: The Best Way to Play EA’s Games


*Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See www.ea.com/eaaccess for details.

Steam had a Small Beta like this about 2 years ago, a subscription model. Not sure if they are still working with it, but hey have to many devs to make it work for them, but maybe EA can as they own their own games. Of course this is console, not PC so its a first, (sorta, the 2600 and Intelvision had cable subscription services in the 80's). As its EA I wont join the overlords, but those who do drink the kool-aid, i can see it being an ok value. I'm sure they will throw a OK or newer title on here and there to gains some subscribers. I have bought most of last years sports games on Ebay/halfoff, and Gamefly for $3.99 to 9.99, so you can gauge value by that. And surprisingly i can still unload these used games for maybe $1 less then i bought um.. so i can play almost for free on the year old stuff. Subscription holds no value to me.

 

[Lil Frier]

Given that Origin exists on PC in its full form, I think that the Xbox could be a trial run, with this eventually expanding to PC. However, they don't produce the sports games on PC like on console (some come, some don't), right? They have a MUCH-larger catalog to produce for Access on PC though, which more than makes up for maybe losing NHL.

 

[Dave3000]

I really don't want additional game services on the PS4 as I think that PSN is enough, but if they are optional then I'm fine with that as long as no games require these service to play. I already don't like having Origin and Uplay clients on my PC in order to play EA and Ubisoft games on my PC. I hope this does not turn out to be Origin for the PS4. When I play a console game I just want to insert the game or click on the downloaded game and start playing without anything getting in my way and I thought that this was a strong point for console gaming.

 

[smackababy]

You won't have to worry about it on the PS4. Sony already has a competing "game vault" like service they run themselves. They stated this service wasn't of any "value" to the PS4 gamers, but they then flip the switch on a service that charges $10 bucks to rent a digital game for a few hours...


And, for people bitching about Origin, I just don't get it. I have had more problems with Steam (although, I've also had Steam longer) than Origin. In fact, I have not had a single problem using Origin. It even launched with features Steam didn't have at the time (ability to stream games through twitch, ability to save games in different locations, etc). Steam has more popups (although they can be disabled, they are on by default) than Origin. Offline mode works straight away (no requiring you to be online to activate it... wtf is up with that Steam). I get you want all your games "in the same place", but really running a service that consumes very few resources and having shortcuts (as I'm sure most people do anyway) has zero impact on your playing.

 

[mmntech]

You won't have to worry about it on the PS4. Sony already has a competing "game vault" like service they run themselves. They stated this service wasn't of any "value" to the PS4 gamers, but they then flip the switch on a service that charges $10 bucks to rent a digital game for a few hours...

Even PlayStation fans are going WTF on that one. I don't think they're going to get much demand when they're charging $7.99 to rent out seven year old games for the week. The last video store we had in town was charging that for new releases.

 

[Topweasel]

You won't have to worry about it on the PS4. Sony already has a competing "game vault" like service they run themselves. They stated this service wasn't of any "value" to the PS4 gamers, but they then flip the switch on a service that charges $10 bucks to rent a digital game for a few hours...


And, for people bitching about Origin, I just don't get it. I have had more problems with Steam (although, I've also had Steam longer) than Origin. In fact, I have not had a single problem using Origin. It even launched with features Steam didn't have at the time (ability to stream games through twitch, ability to save games in different locations, etc). Steam has more popups (although they can be disabled, they are on by default) than Origin. Offline mode works straight away (no requiring you to be online to activate it... wtf is up with that Steam). I get you want all your games "in the same place", but really running a service that consumes very few resources and having shortcuts (as I'm sure most people do anyway) has zero impact on your playing.

Several reasons on my part.
1.) I stopped buying physical discs years ago, stating I won't buy anything that wasn't on Steam. Sure Origin and other options weren't available at the time but I have stuck to that for the most part.
2.) I don't want a bunch of back ground apps running all of the time. You might be saying "well it's only 1 more" but when is it to much? I have one app that handles 160 of my games. Why do I need another?
3.) Along that same line why do I want one that only works for one company? Sure they release a lot of software but its a fraction of the market of Steam.
4.) Big picture. It ruins the Big picture experience for my TV plugged in system. Uplay might be a little annoying but after first play it doesn't ruin Big Picture and only runs when I start a Ubi game. Even if Origin had a Big Picture substitute, it would still ruin my experience because again Steam gives me access to 160 of my games. Why would I want to replace that with something as limited as Origin.
5.) They pulled themselves out of the Steam market to inflate the value of Origin, so instead of competing on feature set and price competition, they became the sole provider of EA titles digitally to PC's. As long as that's the case, while I can't promise never to install Origin, I won't pay for a game one there.
6.) Obviously Steam also is the only digital distro for Valve games. But there are a dozen reasons they get a pass. Part of it was when they started doing it they were the only ones out there. Biggest reason though is that they are not EA. EA doesn't deserve all of the hate they get. But they tend to be on the wrong side of sleazy more than I like. I refuse to build up a library of games on a system developed and run by a company I can't trust not to on purpose screw me over.

Probably a few more reasons but these are the top ones.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Even PlayStation fans are going WTF on that one. I don't think they're going to get much demand when they're charging $7.99 to rent out seven year old games for the week. The last video store we had in town was charging that for new releases.

Yep but what is even funnier is all the people saying "Sony is dead now". That's ridiculous, the service did just start and they can make adjustments along the way. If it fails it fails but the ps4 won't be dead because streaming didn't sell. Nobody buys a ps4 because they can play ps3 games. They buy it for the new games. Then the other people begging for backwards compatibility... I don't get that. The old consoles are cheap now and if you have the game disks, pull out the old hardware too.

I think it is enough to point out the pricing issue and be done. Some people cannot leave it at that and start pulling out the pitchforks lol.

 

[smackababy]

Yep but what is even funnier is all the people saying "Sony is dead now". That's ridiculous, the service did just start and they can make adjustments along the way. If it fails it fails but the ps4 won't be dead because streaming didn't sell. Nobody buys a ps4 because they can play ps3 games. They buy it for the new games. Then the other people begging for backwards compatibility... I don't get that. The old consoles are cheap now and if you have the game disks, pull out the old hardware too.

I think it is enough to point out the pricing issue and be done. Some people cannot leave it at that and start pulling out the pitchforks lol.

Sony has been doing crappy things to their customers for years and hasn't died yet. This new streaming service won't be what kills them. Samsung has already basically pushed them out of the consumer TV market. They have been losing money on Sony Pictures for a decade and is always being talked of being sold off. Sony still likely makes money with SME, but they aren't Universal.

 

[Wingznut]

Yep but what is even funnier is all the people saying "Sony is dead now". That's ridiculous...

Any outrage over any optional service is ridiculous. Don't like it, don't buy it.

 

[Topweasel]

Yep but what is even funnier is all the people saying "Sony is dead now". That's ridiculous, the service did just start and they can make adjustments along the way. If it fails it fails but the ps4 won't be dead because streaming didn't sell. Nobody buys a ps4 because they can play ps3 games. They buy it for the new games. Then the other people begging for backwards compatibility... I don't get that. The old consoles are cheap now and if you have the game disks, pull out the old hardware too.

I think it is enough to point out the pricing issue and be done. Some people cannot leave it at that and start pulling out the pitchforks lol.

Well they practically are. They are struggling to keep anything outside SCE profitable. Just about every other market they are in outside consoles they have become a bit player.

 

[smackababy]

Well they practically are. They are struggling to keep anything outside SCE profitable. Just about every other market they are in outside consoles they have become a bit player.

I think SME is still raking in the money, even if it just from licensing their extensive collection of music.

But, yeah, Playstation is really their only big thing. The Korean electronic makers pushed them out of the TV business (I realize Sony still sells TVs, but nobody is buying them, even at the high end spectrum); Apple pushed them out of the personal music player market (which was their own fault for going with mini discs rather than an HDD and mp3 formatting); and they have been losing money with their movie studio for awhile.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Sony has been doing crappy things to their customers for years and hasn't died yet. This new streaming service won't be what kills them. Samsung has already basically pushed them out of the consumer TV market. They have been losing money on Sony Pictures for a decade and is always being talked of being sold off. Sony still likely makes money with SME, but they aren't Universal.

Sony makes a killing from real estate and insurance. They are also #1 in camera sensor sales from what I understand and do very well in smartphone sales in many markets.

I think SME is still raking in the money, even if it just from licensing their extensive collection of music.

But, yeah, Playstation is really their only big thing. The Korean electronic makers pushed them out of the TV business (I realize Sony still sells TVs, but nobody is buying them, even at the high end spectrum); Apple pushed them out of the personal music player market (which was their own fault for going with mini discs rather than an HDD and mp3 formatting); and they have been losing money with their movie studio for awhile.

Believe me, people are buying Sony's high end TVs. They just don't sell thousands of them a day because they aren't cheap bottom of the barrel models sold at Walmart. People want cheap and that's not Sony.

 

[smackababy]

Sony makes a killing from real estate and insurance. They are also #1 in camera sensor sales from what I understand and do very well in smartphone sales in many markets.

That may be true.



Believe me, people are buying Sony's high end TVs. They just don't sell a thousand of them a day because they aren't cheap bottom of the barrel models sold at Walmart. People want cheap and that's not Sony.[/QUOTE]

They aren't though. At least, not enough. Sony has continuously had to reassess profits after slowing TV sales.

 

[cmdrdredd]

They aren't though. At least, not enough. Sony has continuously had to reassess profits after slowing TV sales.

Like I said, they aren't selling thousands of cheap TVs at local retailers. The people who are buying Sony TVs are buying the higher end models because as you move up the scale, Sony's TVs are usually rated better. They are priced higher though which for some people is a turn off immediately. Otherwise people buy what's on sale which is usually Samsung, LG, or even Toshiba and Panasonic.

It's all about pricing and volume. Sony doesn't sell volume at low prices, and gets beat up in the higher end because they price their higher end sets above the competition. So really only videophiles who know the details and what the specs actually mean and can't use a Plasma in the room, or want a size larger than what is available in Plasma would be looking at Sony models.

Sony keeps their better TV prices high for some reason. I think they feel that people will see a higher price and think "wow that TV must be a ton better" but it doesn't work out. Who can say? Maybe they expect more profit on each unit than Samsung and LG who sell a billion smartphones and various LCD products to boost the bottom line.

 

[Bman123]

Can we get off the Sony TV topic and back to thread title?
I see subscriptions becoming the new thing and im fine with that as long as it's done right

 

[ImpulsE69]

You won't have to worry about it on the PS4. Sony already has a competing "game vault" like service they run themselves. They stated this service wasn't of any "value" to the PS4 gamers, but they then flip the switch on a service that charges $10 bucks to rent a digital game for a few hours...


And, for people bitching about Origin, I just don't get it. I have had more problems with Steam (although, I've also had Steam longer) than Origin. In fact, I have not had a single problem using Origin. It even launched with features Steam didn't have at the time (ability to stream games through twitch, ability to save games in different locations, etc). Steam has more popups (although they can be disabled, they are on by default) than Origin. Offline mode works straight away (no requiring you to be online to activate it... wtf is up with that Steam). I get you want all your games "in the same place", but really running a service that consumes very few resources and having shortcuts (as I'm sure most people do anyway) has zero impact on your playing.

People bitch because: containers. If origin had been around before Steam, I'd probably be hating on Steam. Fact is I don't want 30 different front ends for my games. I didn't want Steam when it came out. It was forced upon me. I decided at that point any other company that was going to make me jump through hoops just to play their games either a) was not going to get my money b) it better be DAAAMN worth the time and aggravation.

As of yet, there isn't anything I can say I miss of EA's. There are plenty of other things to play out there. Companies need to quit acting like their items are gold and realize people are paying them money. That should be enough.

Of course, that is just my opinion. There are people out there who would sell their soul for this or that. To each their own. I look at it from a I ain't got time for dat! aspect, so it makes the decisions easier and the feeling of loss pretty much non existent.

The EA rental system isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's one of those things that I feel should be a MS platform (all games) thing rather than a single devs games. What happens when 10 different companies want to do this? Chaos.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Can we get off the Sony TV topic and back to thread title?
I see subscriptions becoming the new thing and im fine with that as long as it's done right

No...screw subscribing to access games. No, no, no


You're all over the place anyway on this. First you are giving EA the finger and now you think everyone should accept a subscription model to get their games?

 

[Wingznut]

No...screw subscribing to access games. No, no, no


You're all over the place anyway on this. First you are giving EA the finger and now you think everyone should accept a subscription model to get their games?

Perhaps I am not interpreting your thoughts well, but... This isn't a mandatory thing you have to do to access games, it's just another option.

Options are always good.

 

[Bman123]

No...screw subscribing to access games. No, no, no


You're all over the place anyway on this. First you are giving EA the finger and now you think everyone should accept a subscription model to get their games?

I don't have a problem with the idea of it, I have a problem with EA being in control of it. It's no damn different then Netflix, you pay a monthly fee to access content. Sure Netflix sucks sometimes because they don't put stuff on there right when it comes out, the access idea is the same way.

Gamers are a funny crowd and you can never please them all. A subscription service like Netflix for games is fine with me. You pay $96+ a year for Netflix for just digital streaming. If Microsoft went live and said you can stream every game for the Xbox one at the same price as Netflix people would be on here going omgwtfbbqchknftw but many feel entitled and complain about almost everything unless they get the uber deal of the decade.

At first it probably did look like I was against this all, but really I'm against EA doing it because they are far from the best company and they don't allow you to update rosters the way you should be able to. If you could play madden 14 and update the roster via a flash drive after the draft, free agency and the trade deadline a bunch of people would skip a year. They know this and don't let you do it as it forces you to get the next installment of the game to play with the current roster.

That's why I said this is stupid and no one wants to play with a outdated roster, especially if their team made good moves in the off season

 

[smackababy]

I don't have a problem with the idea of it, I have a problem with EA being in control of it. It's no damn different then Netflix, you pay a monthly fee to access content. Sure Netflix sucks sometimes because they don't put stuff on there right when it comes out, the access idea is the same way.

Gamers are a funny crowd and you can never please them all. A subscription service like Netflix for games is fine with me. You pay $96+ a year for Netflix for just digital streaming. If Microsoft went live and said you can stream every game for the Xbox one at the same price as Netflix people would be on here going omgwtfbbqchknftw but many feel entitled and complain about almost everything unless they get the uber deal of the decade.

At first it probably did look like I was against this all, but really I'm against EA doing it because they are far from the best company and they don't allow you to update rosters the way you should be able to. If you could play madden 14 and update the roster via a flash drive after the draft, free agency and the trade deadline a bunch of people would skip a year. They know this and don't let you do it as it forces you to get the next installment of the game to play with the current roster.

That's why I said this is stupid and no one wants to play with a outdated roster, especially if their team made good moves in the off season

Wtf are you talking about? You can update the roster at any time. In fact, people can upload their custom rosters (and they do for updates) and you can download them IN GAME.

 

[bearxor]

Perhaps I am not interpreting your thoughts well, but... This isn't a mandatory thing you have to do to access games, it's just another option.

Options are always good.

I think his fear is that this will become normal and the option to purchase games will start to disappear.

Which is a valid fear. Because it's totally happening. It won't be this year. Or the next. Or not even 2016. But by the time 2018 or 2019 rolls around we will all be subscribing to some sort of 'all access pass' for our consoles to play the games we want to play. And not just the consoles, but probably PC as well. And, by 2020, we likely won't even be installing those games locally.

Some people fear this and fear the control it gives the publishers over their content. Theres perfectly valid reasons to fear it. But its coming.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I think his fear is that this will become normal and the option to purchase games will start to disappear.

Which is a valid fear. Because it's totally happening. It won't be this year. Or the next. Or not even 2016. But by the time 2018 or 2019 rolls around we will all be subscribing to some sort of 'all access pass' for our consoles to play the games we want to play. And not just the consoles, but probably PC as well. And, by 2020, we likely won't even be installing those games locally.

Some people fear this and fear the control it gives the publishers over their content. Theres perfectly valid reasons to fear it. But its coming.

This is why overall I have an issue when it's broken down into companies. To use the Steam reference, that is a 1 for all type scenario (or maybe 1 for 95% of the devs out there scenario) much like Netflix. They are basically a 3rd party that supports pretty much everyone.

EA said, we want all control and all profits so we're taking our stuff off every other service and making it so you can only get it if you use OUR service which has a very small # of other devs there if at all). They are essentially doing the same thing here. Regardless of their reputation, their motives are not "we are making a better experience for the consumer". It is control and maximize profits. Why else would you segregate yourself in such a way rather than make your items available everywhere? It's not about opposing competition which is what a lot of people try to claim.

Obviously the console area is a bit different for the moment, and as stated by other people, maybe if it was a different dev or MS as a whole that was putting this in place for everything it would make people feel at ease. EA hasnt' been known for making consumer based decisions. Then again they could be a test for what becomes a future box with no drive, no hard drive and you simply rent a game for 20 minutes and it streams to the box and it's like an arcade where every 20 minutes it charges you another $1.00

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't want to rely on streaming for games. I still buy blu-ray movies because not only is the quality better, but I can play it forever so long as I have the device to play it and a way to hook it up.

Optional is fine but I am still against it gaining traction because then every company will segregate their content on their own service and then start locking content behind a paywall. Like map packs, you can't get it unless you are a subscriber and the next step is to lock entire games away behind the paywall. I want to buy the game once and that's it. If you make me download only from psn or xbl fine but I do not want to be forced to subscribe to a service to get my games. That's what I am afraid of.

 

[sze5003]

If paywalls are what would happen in the near future then I would probably stop wasting my time playing games and put my money towards something else like getting my skydiving license.