EA could launch a streaming service in the next three years

EA has already set up platforms for subscription across multiple gaming platforms including its Origin shop and the EA Access on Xbox One. But it could also be launching a streaming service in the near future.

There’s no name for it yet, and there isn’t even an official confirmation of its existence outside of the word of EA’s CFO, Blake Jorgensen from the UBM Global Technology Conference, who believed that a service will be coming by 2020.

"I think you’ll see a commercial offering probably in the next 2-3 years from us and a partner," Jorgensen said during the conference call of the event and reported by Gamespot. Jorgensen also suggested that the combination of this with the existing Origin and Access services could lead to more options for consumers regarding pricing levels.

The expansion of live services is something that the games industry as a whole is moving to, in triple-A development at least. And a streaming service could be a way to increase revenue for certain titles. Jorgensen pointed out that around three-quarters of EA’s business is earned from evergreen titles, such as the yearly licenced releases that act as a service like FIFA and Madden NFL. If that can spur the rest of the business to act as more of a live service then the two models could benefit each other.

Another part of the Gamespot report is a suggestion that the unnamed partner for the subscription service could be Microsoft. Following an interview with Bloomberg, Phil Spencer suggested that a service could come from Microsoft within a similar time frame to the EA service. Microsoft’s own Azure cloud technology could be the catalyst for a streaming service meaning that much of the framework is already in place.