http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-25-ea-sports-absolutely-a-time-for-subs

There will "absolutely" come a time when you'll want "access" to EA Sports content via monthly or annual subscriptions, label vice president Andrew Wilson predicted to Eurogamer.

"If we look at what consumers have pushed other industries for: if we look at what consumers forced the music industry to provide, if we look at what consumers have driven as a result of television and movie subscription, if you look at us - there's absolutely a time somewhere at some point in the future where the consumers say, 'Hey, this is how we want to interact with you: we want to give you a monthly or annual subscription and we want access to everything you make,'" Wilson told us.

"They get to drive the time and place for it, and a lot of it is technology dependent, but absolutely we can see a future where that might be the way we deliver games."

Wilson's comments follow a leaked EA memo from April that unmasked plans for a paid EA Sports subscription service. This, we heard at the time, would "enhance your gaming experience" with "exclusive benefits".

Speaking to Eurogamer, Wilson revealed that "one of the things we're driving is EA Sports as a service". It's one of the reasons, he elaborated, that the company has opened another studio in Austin.

Whether, further down the line, all of EA's games could be piped down the internet to subscribers, is a dream dependent not on console technology but on broadband capability.

"It's less about the generation and more about internet infrastructure," Wilson said.

"The thing about consoles [is] that's a lot of content: six, seven gigs of information. Right now there are some places in the world where you can move that size of information around relatively seamlessly; there are a lot of places you can't.

"Right now the consoles themselves could facilitate it," he added, "but there are other barriers to entry that make getting it from Game or GameStop a viable proposition, at least today."

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If this happens I'm going back to PES...

Just looking at what this paid subscription offers....

The document then lists a range of planned perks:

Discounts on downloadable content for EA Sports titles - nice way of keeping the DLC trend going
A digital badge to appear in-game and on your EA web profile  - completely stupid perk
Exclusive opportunities to "extend your EA Sports experience to PC and Web"  - not sure how many customers would even care for this
Exclusive DLC for certain EA Sports titles - DLC bullshit again....
Ability to move DLC to future versions of a title - maybe the best offering but they will probably limit which DLC can be moved
Full downloadable versions of EA Sports titles before they hit retail - don't care

I see nothing of value or anything to warrant the subscription. Maybe if they allowed you to update your rosters, added new players, etc.. to their older sports games it would seem better. However, to focus almost half of the perks for the service on DLC that you still have to buy... EA you crack me up.

But still EA will force me to buy the next year edition... -_-'

A subscription would only work if all DLC for EA games would be free. I dont see one reason why you would do it for anything less than that, and even then it would be a hard sell.

depending on how they do it may not be a bad idea. If it was pay a yearly subscription and the game just constanly updates instead of rereleasing every year, mainly to keep the userbase together. What i mean is pay a sub fee for each gen or console and so long as you pay your fee you get the most up to date game with dlc. would keep the multiplayer with a bigger userbase and eliminate the need to buy the game each year like people do any ways (isn't that kind of like a once a year sub fee any ways).