EA Planning More Downloadable Games

In something that won’t come as a surprise, EA Sports president Peter Moore confirmed in his latest blog posting that more downloadable games along the lines of 3 on 3 NHL Arcade will be coming down the line. Considering the positive reception to the idea of downloading off the XBL Marketplace and PSN along with the low price of $10 it fits what EA was hoping to do with some of their off-titles. Doing so would have probably benefited other arcade style titles released in the past year and changed the way in which they were perceived.

Yet in the next three months, we’ll launch 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, a $10 downloadable game that’s already one of ESPN’s most anticipated new games of the year and a blueprint for many more inexpensive, approachable, and downloadable experiences from EA SPORTS in the year ahead; NASCAR KART Racing, the first of at least three EA SPORTS products that will be either exclusive to, or lead with, the Wii in 2009; and the EA SPORTS Complex, launching for free this spring on PlayStation Home.  I also know many of you await our plans on PC this year, and I think there are learnings here as well, beyond just downloads for console gamers, for going online to deliver compelling experiences to the PC community as well.

This is still a lot of interest around what EA will do with the PC titles going forward. I continue to believe what you’ll see is more along the lines of what they have done in Asia. I don’t expect them to just be simple console ports. Online centric, possibly free to download and supported by ads and micro-transactions could be the direction they go here in the US too.