EA Relationship With Sony “Very Good”, “No Strategic Tilt” to Titanfall’s Xbox One Exclusivity

Frank Gibeau clarifies the publisher's reported cosying up with Microsoft.


Despite the deals with EA has struck up with Microsoft, which includes Titanfall being exclusive to the Xbox One and Xbox 360, free digital copies of FIFA 14 with Xbox One pre-orders in Europe and timed exclusivity for titles like Peggle 2 and Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, Frank Gibeau has revealed to CVG that there is no strategic tilt as such to these decisions.

Calling EA’s relationship with Sony “very good”, Gibeau was asked if having exclusives for the Xbox One would affect the commercial success of the PS4. He responded, “Not internally developed EA games. We’re changing nothing in our policy about being platform-agnostic. One of the things that struck me this week is how a tactical deal with one of our platform partners has been blown out and perceived as strategic tilt – that’s a messaging error on our part. There is no strategic tilt.

“The Sony platform and the Xbox platform are both very important to us. If you look at the previous generation we did tactical deals with both Sony and Microsoft throughout the cycle. Titanfall is different, it’s an EA Partners game – everything else is platform agnostic.

“Sony has been executing exceptionally well on the next-gen transition. Their hardware’s hot, they’re clear and disciplined and consistent with their policies, they are showing some amazing things with indies, so overall I couldn’t be more pleased with how they’re executing. I hope both systems are successful – EA succeeds when more platforms are doing well.”

On whether we’d be seeing some PS4 exclusive titles from EA, Gibeau stated that, “It’s a long cycle, and certainly there’s potential with Sony exclusivity deals too. I can tell you now, our internal games, the games we make ourselves, will be multiplatform.”

Satisfied with the response?

EAFIFA 14MicrosoftPeggle 2PopCap Interactiveps4sonyTitanFallXbox One