'Madden NFL,' 'FIFA Soccer' and Other EA Sports May Soon Offer Music Streaming Option; Will It Replace Soundtracks?

The capabilities of your Xbox360/Playstation 4 might jump to a whole new level if Electronic Arts manages to pull off its next goal, which is to add a streaming music feature to the next chapters of its Madden football series or its FIFA futball series. Representatives for EA Sports discussed the future music plans of the company in an interview with ESPN.

Steve Schnur, one of the heads of the music team at the video game company, made some bold statements with regard to his company's role as a tastemaker: "What once was MTV and radio to an older generation is now FIFA and Madden," he said (from SoftPedia).

Although the company aims to be ahead of the curve when it crafts its soundtracks, Schnur and fellow music expert Cybelle Pettus acknowledged that in the current age of music consumption, they want to make things even more in-the-now. That means adapting streaming capabilities for the company's video game titles, including Madden. Schnur said that it was important that players can "hear what's cool in Week 7 of the NFL, not just Week 1."

That said, there's no word on how these plans will be implemented or if users can expect on the newest titles of EA Sports' hit series later during 2015.

It seems that the company would offer streaming as an available option for purchase, rather than include it automatically with new titles. It also seems unlikely that EA would create its own streaming service, as gathering all the licenses needed for a solid music catalogue would be quite an effort for an option not entirely necessary for sports games to succeed. Therefore the company may find it beneficial to team up with an established streaming service such as Spotify. That would still require a good deal of legal maneuvering however, deciding how much Spotify or others would charge for access to its extensive catalogue, and consequently how much of that cost EA will transfer to its users.