Early NBA Live 15 Demo Arrives Soon, Too Late For Some

In revealing the NBA Live 15 demo details earlier this week developer Electronic Arts has given us a look at what could become another advantage of owning an Xbox One. The NBA Live 15 demo will arrive on the Xbox One through EA Access on October 23nd. It won’t arrive for regular Xbox One users and owners of Sony’s PS4 until a longtime after that.

Electronic Arts revealed the NBA Live 15 demo details in a post on its EA Sports news blog just yesterday, and understandably, those details have some gamers upset. The NBA Live 15 demo will be available for users who have the developer’s EA Access subscription pass to download on October 23rd. That’s five days before the game is scheduled to debut on store shelves thanks to a delay. For those users that’s great, the demo will give them 6 hours to try out the game and decide if they should purchase or cancel their NBA Live 15 pre-orders.

The problem is where everyone else comes in. The NBA Live 15 demo won’t be available for regular Xbox One and PS4 users until October 28th. That’s the game’s launch day. Electronic Arts is essentially giving users who don’t pay for its service a way of testing the game before it’s too late to cancel their pre-order. That’s generally frowned up in the gaming community as a cheap sales ploy despite users also being able to cancel their pre-orders after release and get their money back.

For Xbox One owners, this delayed NBA Live 15 demo will only come as mildly insulting if they’re offended at all. All Xbox One owners have the option to purchase an EA Access subscription and get the NBA Live 15 demo early. Owners of Sony’s PS4 gaming console aren’t so lucky.

Announced earlier this year, EA Access costs users $4.99. With the service users get access to upcoming demos that last a few hours and discounts on titles created by Electronic Arts. That alone might be worth signing up for some, but EA Access also includes another key feature called The Vault. The Vault is a collection of games that EA Access subscribers can download to their console at no additional charge. These games include all of their extras and don’t have time limits. As long as EA Access subscribers keep an active subscription, the games keep working. Today The Vault includes digital copies of Battlefield 4, Madden NFL 25, FIFA 14, Peggle 2, Need for Speed Rivals and Plants Vs. Zombies Garden Warfare.

The Vault is important and relevant to the NBA Live 15 demo because it’s probably why Sony decided to not make EA Access subscriptions available to its customers. Company officials have gone on record saying that it just didn’t see EA Access being of value to its users, however it’s more likely that Sony didn’t want any competition for its fledgling PlayStation Now on-demand game rental service. PlayStation Now lets users on the PS Vita, PlayStation TV, PS4 and more stream games that are actually being played on servers at Sony. The console just sort of acts as a remote control to all the action that’s happening somewhere else. Sony charges users for PlayStation Now in batches of hours.

Read: Is EA Access Worth Buying?

In rejecting in EA Access Sony has made it so PS4 users can’t get early access to game demos from Electronic Arts, giving the Xbox One a small advantage for those who like Electronic Arts games and want to try them before purchasing, at least.

Besides better graphics and upgraded controls, Electronic Arts is hoping that better computer-controlled players and a tuned defensive blocking system well help it pick up sales in the face of a refreshed NBA 2K15. NBA Live 15 will cost $59.99 when it arrives on store shelves and in the Xbox Store and PlayStation Store on October 28th. NBA Live 15 won’t be available on the PS3 or Xbox 360.