Apparently, EA’s gamble has succeeded- EA Access, which was made available exclusively to Xbox One Xbox Live Gold subscribers, seems to be doing pretty damn well, according to what EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson told investors during last night’s call.
“EA Access membership has grown well beyond our early expectations and we anticipate continued momentum in the months ahead,” he said.
Moore re-iterated the sentiment:
“We’re seeing both empirical and anecdotal data that people now who are members of Access and of course, have access to games like FIFA and Madden, who’ve said that ordinarily they wouldn’t have gone out and bought them, are now experiencing them and enjoying them and our belief is the next time around when the games are launched, they will actually buy them.”
“It’s turning into an incredible sampling program for us if you will, and obviously the value for money is there,” he said, before re-adding, “EA Access is surpassing all of our internal expectations with regards to subscriber numbers and it’s delivering exactly what we thought which would be a great way for gamers to get great value and experience more games.”
That said, there are no plans for expansion currently- when EA was asked about bringing the program or service over to PS4, they only said they had ‘nothing to talk about right now.’ Of course, given that Sony has openly spoken out about the perceived lack of a value proposition with EA Access, it might be that EA isn’t exactly too keen to bring the program over, although it is arguable that the PS4’s larger user base will make it worth it for them in the long run.