So an early EA call earlier today about Anthem (which also covered Apex Legends) wasn't particularly glowing. It covered the basics of launch, and various statistics, but the bottom line was the fact the game fell below expectations, and didn't really earn high praise from EA in any way shape or form. Here's the TL:DR below.

• Still committed to Anthem.

• Reiterated having confidence in Bioware.

• Launch did not meet expectations.

• Players have spent over 150MM hours since launch.

• Players gave positive feedback on beauty of world and fun of flying around in suit, gameplay.

• Experiencing issues as game was brought to scale, on variety of activities and missions.

• Team is committed to improve the game and deliver new content over time.

• Anthem was the biggest digital game they've ever launched? Not sure if I heard that right.

• "Continue to invest heavily in anthem on content, game systems , something something - it is a great new IP and we are doubling down on it."

"Typically we would have marketed these games as drip feed content over time build up hype over time... as games get bigger it's not working as well as it used to. Not just about how we development and QA games, although those are being changed, but with how we communicate and interact and market over time.

Will work better to make sure game is ready, that the infrastructure is ready for scale, and that players understand what they are playing now and over time. "

What's particularly interesting about the above is the fact that, incomparison to statements previously made about Bioware, it's officially luke-warm. Is Anthem going to find itself on the wrong side of EA?

However, we believe in the team at BioWare, and we also believe in what they set out to achieve with this game (...) The team is now very focused on continued improvements to the game, and will then bring more content updates and in-game events that will enhance and expand the Anthem experience

For comparison

So we're very happy with kind of how BioWare is doing, how BioWare is treating Mass Effect. And our expectations for Mass Effect are still strong for the future and the franchise overall. (...) And we chose to give the team some more time to deliver against that innovation because we believe players are looking for the kinds of things that we plan to put into that game. And so we're very happy with BioWare. BioWare has continued to support Mass Effect, and the new team is doing some amazing things and you'll hear more about that in the months to come.

Andrew Wilson, May 2017