EA Sports boss Peter Moore has said good old-fashioned retail remains "a very strong partner" despite today's announcement of an EA Sports 'Season Ticket' subscription service which heavily focuses on digitally distributed content.
Launching today for PS3 and Xbox 360 in North America, and for Xbox 360 only in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, it offers subscribers early digital access to full games, 20 percent off DLC, free premium web content and other features for $24.99 / 2000 MS Points (about £17.30) a year.
It could be seen as the first major step away from retail distribution methods for EA, but Moore insists retail remains important to EA Sports.
"With regards to our ability to look at this as a full service... we still see retail as a very strong partner here," said Moore in chat with Industry Gamers. "There are still millions of people who go through the doors of the GameStops of this world every single day and they're the core consumer we're looking at."
He went on: "But we're going to learn a lot in the next 12 months. This is about understanding what the consumer likes, understanding the price points so we can do some price elasticity testing on this and making sure what we're delivering is what the consumer wants... we'll see how we evolve this program in the coming years."