Skate 3 joins EA's paid-for subscription program EA Access on Xbox One, with many fans of the series hoping that renewed interest in the game will lead to Skate 4.

Gaining popularity thanks to YouTubers like PewDiePie who continue to play the game and make gnarly wipeout and trick montages for their channels, EA skateboarding sim Skate 3 is now a hot property. So much so that for months, fans demanded that EA make the game playable via the Xbox backward compatibility program. Those requests eventually paid off when the game came to Xbox One a few months ago but now, EA is giving players yet another way to get their hands on the title.

As of today, Skate 3 is now available through EA's subscription program EA Access, which is exclusive to Xbox One. Skate 3 joins the EA Access Vault, which offers a variety of games for $4.99 month including Star Wars Battlefront, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Madden NFL 17, and many others. Unfortunately, Skate 3 has not joined the PC version of EA Access, Origin Access as the game was never released on PC.

It's also unclear whether Skate 3 will be re-released on PS4. The Sony console does not have EA Access as Sony doesn't think it's a good value, but it does offer access to PS3 games through its PlayStation Now streaming service. PS Now already offers a few other EA games, such as Mass Effect 2 and Mirror's Edge so the company could follow Rockstar Games' lead as that brought Red Dead Redemption to PS Now and made it available through Xbox backward compatibility.

While the EA Access availability is surely disappointing for those on PlayStation and PC, fans are feeling quite hopeful about this development overall. Could EA be using the re-release of Skate 3 to test the waters and see whether people are really interested in spending money on the series? And that fans aren't more interested in just watching other people play rather than actually playing the game themselves?

Although the company denied that Skate 4 is in development, a teaser tweet and these Skate 3 announcements have garnered a huge response from fans. There is clearly a huge love for the franchise but the question now is what EA plans to do with that. The company could give fans what they want, or it could choose to hedge its bets and save its money if it thinks that Skate 4 is a risky investment. The series' future is up in the air then, but fans will no doubt continue to be vocal and keep their fingers crossed.

Skate 3 is now available for EA Access on Xbox One.