EA Access PS4

Sony caused something of a hullabaloo recently when it said that EA Access – a subscription service similar to PlayStation Plus consisting solely of EA published titles – does not represent good value. The initiative – which is available now on the Xbox One – allows you to pay a monthly or annual fee in order to access a range of releases on a rental basis, as well as various other perks. So, why is the Japanese giant so eager to block it on the PlayStation 4 – and why won’t it allow us to make up our own mind?

“The thinking behind it is, we just do not look at one proposition, like EA Access,” Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer.net. “We look at the whole offering of the titles or services on the platform, and we thought about the impact of having something like that as a new symptom. If every publisher follows suit, and as a consumer you have to choose by publisher which service to subscribe to, that's not something that we believe is best for consumers.”

He’s got a point: stumping up a few dollars a month for EA Access may not seem like much, but what happens when you have to juggle Activision Access, Ubisoft Access, and Bethesda Access as well? “We are not just looking at that one proposition,” Yoshida continued. “We were thinking about the impact that that might have for the future offering of products and services on PlayStation.” But that doesn’t mean that the idea’s off the table entirely.

“Nothing can be final,” he said. “It's not a technical matter; it's more of a business matter. I'm not directly involved as it's a third-party relations matter. But I'm sure that our third-party guys are talking with EA closely. And, also, we are listening to consumers as well. I'm the one who gets harsh comments. I have to give that feedback to my company, right? Otherwise I can't maintain my sanity. That sometimes annoys some of our members, but that's part of my job now.”

Would you like to see EA Access eventually make its way to the PS4, or do you share some of Yoshida’s concerns? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source eurogamer.net]