Electronic Arts recently announced that EA Access, its subscription service for games on consoles, would finally be coming to PS4 in July. In the conference call following its Q4 and FY2019 results (as noted by Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad), EA said that subscriptions are “important” for the company. It noted that subscription services would be coming to “more” platforms with more games and better tools.
The publisher is also looking to add third party games and generally experimenting with new titles it adds to the Vault. Unsurprisingly, it looks at the engagement within the service to figure out which games, new titles, new IP, and genres to add later. Players are also trying games and series that they’ve never tried before thanks to EA/Origin Access.
EA Access and Origin Access combined have over 3.5 million subscribers, which is no small feat. EA has expressed interest in streaming and is currently looking into a streaming-with-subscription combo service in the future. Specific numbers for Origin Access Premier, which is used for playing new games a week early, weren’t provided.
$EA Conference Call:
– Subscriptions are important for EA. Will bring subscription services to more platforms + add more games + improve technology/tools.
– Subscriptions are profitable for EA.
– Experimenting with new games launching into the service + adding 3rd party games— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019
$EA Conference Call (Continued):
– Addition of EA Access on PS4 will be a huge benefit.
– Have over 3.5m subscribers across EA Access and Origin Access
– Are looking into streaming + subscription combo for the future.— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019
$EA Conference Call (Continued):
– Many players are trying games/series they've never played before due to the large library on Access/Origin.
– Use engagement seen inside the subscription service to decide which games to add to the service + greenlight new titles/genres/IP.— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019
