14 DAY TRIAL // Maybe the biggest news to come out of the recently ended Gamescom event in Cologne, Germany is the fact that Microsoft has entered a deal with Electronic Arts to include a downloadable code for FIFA 14 in each Xbox One package that’s pre-ordered on the European market.
This is the continent that invented the game of football and perfected it to this day, home of the greatest clubs in the world, from Manchester United, to Bayern, to Barcelona, and to an audience which generates a huge amount of money for EA via both retail sales and associated microtransactions.
The move, which surely cost Microsoft quite a bit of money, is clearly designed to make the Xbox One a solid competitor for the PlayStation 4, which has benefited from the traditional edge that Sony has enjoyed on the European markets.
That such a deal took place and that gamers have access to a great promotion like this on coming hardware is a sure sign of how heated the race for next-generation success is at the moment, more than two months away from the actual launch of both devices.
It will be interesting to see whether the team at Sony in charge of the PS4 will try to create an own bundle that will also capture the football loving audience.
At the same time, the company might simply bet that its lower price will be a better argument than a FIFA 14 bundle, because it gives gamers the freedom to choose how to spend the extra cash.
Regardless of the Sony countermove and other possible bundle announcements from Microsoft, the month of November will be a very heated one for gamers who are looking for a next-gen device and only have disposable funds for one platform.
And let’s not forget that Nintendo still wants to sell 9 million devices before the end of March 2014, which can only be accomplished by a price cut at this point.