Star Wars: Battlefront is not a timed exclusive on Xbox One. Not as we normally take the meaning of that term, anyway.
Yesterday, Aaron Greenberg, the chief of marketing for Xbox, perked up a lot of ears with this tweet:
@Spitfire_Spud @PNF4LYFE @JCrookedSmile @TiC_Podcast @The_CrapGamer @XboxP3 @EAAccess @EA_DICE Very ready & play it first on #XboxOne!
— Aaron Greenberg (@aarongreenberg) April 14, 2015
Greenberg followed up in an email to Polygon to say he means that Star Wars: Battlefront will be first on Xbox One thanks to EA Access, the Xbox One-only service where Electronic Arts makes big upcoming releases available to subscribers the weekend before they launch.
"I was referring to the fact that Xbox One is the only place you can play all new EA games before they launch, exclusively with EA Access," Greenberg said, just to be clear.
That means this game's official release date — as yet unannounced — is still the same for all platforms, PS4 and Windows PC included.
EA Access launched in August; PlayStation said no thanks to it back in July. Xbox One is the only console that can subscribe to it. Electronic Arts has given big releases, such as its stable of EA Sports title, as well as Battlefield: Hardline most recently, a preview weekend on the service.
Subscribers download the full game and are able to play beginning the Friday before the game's full release date. Access expires after a certain amount of gameplay, usually several hours. But save files are preserved and may be resumed if the full game is purchased later.
Star Wars: Battlefront is being developed by DICE and is expected to launch this holiday season in time for the theatrical release of Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens. It is currently in beta testing.