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EA Reveals New Subscription Service on Xbox One

EA Access includes a back catalog of EA games, discounts, and the ability to play games early.

Electronic Arts has a new idea for a gaming subscription service, and it's called EA Access. Currently exclusive to Xbox One, EA Access grants entry to a back catalog of EA games inside The Vault, a 10% discount on purchasing games and DLC digitally, and access to retail games five days before release.

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Starting today, it's rolling out to Xbox One users, and signups occur through the EA Access Hub app.

Users can choose between a monthly ($4.99) or annual ($29.99) subscription fee, and the first wave of games loaded into the The Vault include Peggle 2, Battlefield 4, Madden NFL 25, and FIFA 14. Those games have been handpicked for the beta, however, and it's unclear if games in The Vault will stay for limited periods, rotate, or eventually have time limits associated with them. For now, it's unlimited, while EA sees how people respond to the program.

I have to imagine paying a few dollars to start playing Dragon Age: Inquisition nearly a week before release is going to be awfully tempting, especially since your progress will be saved. Any takers?

If successful, it's likely EA Access becomes available elsewhere, but no details on that just yet.

More specifics on EA Access are available through a FAQ on the company's website.

Patrick Klepek on Google+

157 Comments

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Sander

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"Best of the Best" or cherry picked to make sure games like Titan Fall aren't included?

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theinvinciblemark

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Maybe my math is faulty, but if you were going to buy an EA game digitally, wouldn't it just be better to buy a 1 month sub first and save a dollar? Or is EA about to drop the price of a new digital game?

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Branthog

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No.

I may consider a massive Netflix style library with a subscription service, but not a per-publisher service. Give me something cheap, massive, and supported across countless devices for no additional cost and we'll talk.

Also, it would help if you have games I give a shit about. The list of games EA put out in 2013 are only trumped in the lack-of-giving-a-shit department by how little I give a shit about their 2014 games ( FIFA, UFC, Garden Warfare, Madden, and Titanfall, as far as I know).

I mean, most of the stuff they're putting out these days is sports, facebook, android, or ios crap. What reason could I ever possibly have for subscribing to that?!

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Dberg

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Whatever, I haven't bought an EA game since they were banished from Steam.

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numberThirtyOne

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The best of EA is when they just release on Steam and try to stay out of the way.

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Sterling

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Oh man. You only get 6 hours of play time with early access to Madden, and possibly other future games. Not the full five days like they eluded to at the start. You can download five days early, but only get to play 6 hours. So basically you are paying for a demo.