14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has apparently decided to shelf the PlayStation Rewards program that was supposed to launch this year, saying that public testing suggests that it is not yet ready for mass participation.
An official e-mail message from Sony reads: “Based on what we learned, we have decided the program is not ready to roll out to the public in April as originally planned. But rest assured, we will continue to thank loyal and devoted customers like you with innovative offerings.”
The initial description of PlayStation Rewards said those who use it will “gain exclusive status, recognition, and rewards based on a variety of PlayStation-centric activities they engage in across the PlayStation ecosystem.”
Initially, Sony said that the sort of activities which would contribute towards getting rewards would include participating in PlayStation surveys, playing a game for the first time, buying content from the PSN and taking part in meta games that Sony was launching.
The official launch was set to take place in April, after a beta stage was to be completed.
Sony has been working very hard to make the PlayStation Network as attractive to PS3 users as the Xbox Live is for those who game on the Xbox 360.
The company has introduced a PlayStation Plus subscription-based service, which allows access to some beta and demo versions earlier than for normal customers, and has encouraged developers to launch more titles exclusively on the PSN.
The Rewards program would have been a good way to attract more activity on the PlayStation Network, but the cost of the rewards that Sony would have to offer might have been bigger than the increase of revenue that was projected for the new program.
Sony will probably introduce some sort of rewards for those who pay for the Plus subscription in order to attract more players to it in the near future.