Microsoft was making big moves last year while rolling out the Xbox Series X. During the launch of the Xbox Series X, the subscription service Xbox Game Pass Ultimate added a number of perks, and even secured a partnership with Electronic Arts that added EA Play to its subscription service for free.
By adding EA Play to the Game Pass Ultimate service, Microsoft provided almost 100 EA games to its list of downloadable titles for only $14.99 a month. Players were then able to download hit EA games such as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and entire franchises like Battlefield, Dead Space, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect. EA's partnership with Microsoft is proving beneficial to both players and Electronic Arts, according to the latest Q3 shareholder meeting at EA.
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EA has praised the Microsoft partnership, which has substantially boosted its subscription service and streaming players. During the Q3 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said, "The groundbreaking integration of our EA PLAY service with Microsoft Game Pass has accelerated our subscription business, with nearly 13 million players now active in our service across four platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, Steam and our EA client."
Wilson also praises the Microsoft Cloud Gaming service, saying that it has brought even more streaming players in, and EA hopes to keep advancing Cloud Gaming as a part of its future gaming ecosystem. The partnership with Microsoft is still fairly new, but it seems the benefit of both Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and the Cloud Gaming service will keep the partnership active for a long time. During the earnings call, EA also brought up successful titles continuing to grow, like free-to-play Apex Legends, which boasts 30% growth in new players last year and broke viewership and streaming records in November.
CEO Andrew Wilson also went on to reveal a few future plans like a new Battlefield title as well as the announcement to bring college football titles back to EA. While this is good news for fans of the franchises, the announcement could rake in a ton of new players, especially if the new titles are integrated into the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Cloud Gaming service. EA just recently announced that College Football titles will be back, causing waves on social media from long-time fans of the franchise, with their last experience being NCAA Football 14.
It seems EA will be leaning on the partnership with Microsoft for quite a long time. However, EA Play's integration with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has still not made its way to PC, though EA and Xbox have promised that the service will be available during 2021, but no release date has been revealed.
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Source: EA Q3 Earning Call