EA insists it's not favouring Microsoft over Sony

EA has insisted it's not favouring Microsoft over Sony despite the announcement of a raft of exclusive deals for Xbox.

At E3 in June EA announced shooter Titanfall, from Respawn Entertainment, for PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360. At Gamescom Microsoft announced that all European Xbox One pre-orders come with FIFA 14 for free, and that the FIFA Ultimate Legends feature is exclusive to Xbox. Then there's timed exclusivity on Xbox One for Peggle 2 and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.

Speaking with Gamesindustry International, EA chief Peter Moore said the company was not favouring Microsoft, and suggested PlayStation specific deals could be announced in the future.

"We have relationships with both companies that go back many many years, so I think that what you saw yesterday [Microsoft's Gamescom media briefing] was, just from a phasing perspective, you saw a little bit more of the Microsoft stuff," Moore said.

"We have a lot of partnership opportunities with Sony, with the PlayStation 4, which we have done for many many years, that maybe we should start talking more about.

"But it may have seemed that way, I don't think that we're favouring one over the other, we love them both dearly. It's important to the publishing community that both are very successful and I think they will be very successful. I think the gamers, the fanboys, I'm an Xbox guy, I'm a PlayStation guy, they're going to make their choices. I see a lot of talk about people who are going to try to get both.

"Microsoft has been very aggressive with us, as had Sony, we're a very powerful publisher obviously, that has the ability to deliver great content and makes a difference on their platforms, and they want to make sure they get that."

At Gamescom FIFA development lead David Rutter denied the Xbox One bundle was thought up by the platform holder to help ease price concerns after E3. Moore said it was likely an attempt by Microsoft to boost Xbox's appeal in Europe, where it lags behind PlayStation.

"Microsoft, particularly in Europe, feels it needs to catch up a little bit with the PlayStation brand and this is one way to do it," Moore said.

"You take soccer and you add Europe to the mix and then you bring it together. And I suspect as well Microsoft is looking at ways to add value, as I'm sure Sony is here to make the price points feel a little bit more of a bargain. We sat down a while back and talked about this and that's how it happened."