Electronic Arts Details ‘EA Sports Complex’ For PlayStation Home

 

Electronic Arts says its support for PlayStation Home, just announced by Sony during the company’s CES presentation, will begin with an area devoted to EA Sports.

The “EA Sports Complex” (pictured) is currently in development, EA confirmed, and slated for a Spring launch inside the PlayStation 3’s 3D social virtual world. 

The company says it’s designed for “both casual and hardcore gamers” as an area where they can play Home-exclusive multiplayer games, interact with other EA Sports fans and compare against one another with various leaderboards. 

The EA Sports Complex in Home will also feature trailers and content from popular EA Sports titles.

“We’re proud to support the PlayStation Home Beta with a very robust offering from EA Sports,” says label president Peter Moore. “As part of our continued commitment to the connected experience and the digitization of our business, the EA Sports Complex is a rich new online environment that presents a compelling and immersive social gaming experience for the global sports audience.”

The EA Sports Complex is apparently just the beginning of the publisher’s collaboration with PlayStation Home — the company says it’s presently working with Sony on further support for Home, with plans to be announced in the “near future.”

Home Virtual Items ‘Selling Like Hotcakes’

Virtual items in online community PlayStation Home are “selling like hotcakes,” according to new comments by Susan Panico, senior director of the PlayStation Network at Sony.

Speaking to the Silicon Valley Insider, Panico failed to provide any specific figures, but stated that the sale of virtual items in the first four days of Home’s launch had generated more revenue for Sony than movies and videos had in their first week.

Items such as clothing and furniture are available on Home from between $0.49 to $4.99, while movies and videos from the PlayStation Network can cost up to $14.99. The most popular item at present is a Santa Claus outfit.

“It’s a classic 80/20 model, where 20 percent of your customers create 80 percent of your income,” said Panico.

Panico also says that the long-term goal for the PlayStation Network is to make the PlayStation 3 a replacement for cable boxes, with Sony Pictures providing exclusive content.

“We look aspirationally at HBO, the way they have ‘Sex and the City’ and other shows,” she says.