EA has entered into an exclusive partnership with Microsoft, according to a pair of anonymous CVG sources.

The terms of the partnership were unknown, but are suspected to be something to do with timed or in some cases complete DLC exclusivity.

Xbox-exclusive games from the giant publisher seem unlikely, however.

EA was conspicuously absent from last week’s PlayStation 4 announcement, as it was trying to "maintain a good balance of power with all the parties out there and choosing when to unveil certain pieces of software”, according to EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen.

"At the end of the day we are very excited about Sony's platform,” he added.

“We feel there's a huge opportunity there. The technical power on the platform is going to allow us to do a substantial amount of things that have never been done before.”

It is expected that Microsoft will announce its next-generation Xbox platform at a special one-off event in late April.