EA Sports: "Absolutely a time" for subs

There will "absolutely" come a time when you'll want "access" to EA Sports content via monthly or annual subscriptions, label vice president Andrew Wilson predicted to Eurogamer.

"If we look at what consumers have pushed other industries for: if we look at what consumers forced the music industry to provide, if we look at what consumers have driven as a result of television and movie subscription, if you look at us - there's absolutely a time somewhere at some point in the future where the consumers say, 'Hey, this is how we want to interact with you: we want to give you a monthly or annual subscription and we want access to everything you make,'" Wilson told us.

"They get to drive the time and place for it, and a lot of it is technology dependent, but absolutely we can see a future where that might be the way we deliver games."

Wilson's comments follow a leaked EA memo from April that unmasked plans for a paid EA Sports subscription service. This, we heard at the time, would "enhance your gaming experience" with "exclusive benefits".

Speaking to Eurogamer, Wilson revealed that "one of the things we're driving is EA Sports as a service". It's one of the reasons, he elaborated, that the company has opened another studio in Austin.

Whether, further down the line, all of EA's games could be piped down the internet to subscribers, is a dream dependent not on console technology but on broadband capability.

"It's less about the generation and more about internet infrastructure," Wilson said.

"The thing about consoles [is] that's a lot of content: six, seven gigs of information. Right now there are some places in the world where you can move that size of information around relatively seamlessly; there are a lot of places you can't.

"Right now the consoles themselves could facilitate it," he added, "but there are other barriers to entry that make getting it from Game or GameStop a viable proposition, at least today."