14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has officially announced a new free loyalty program for its fans, called PlayStation Rewards, which will debut with an invitation only beta stage and has an official launch date for the wider public at some point during spring 2011.
Apparently rewards will be delivered to those who use the PlayStation Network for normal use, with the incentives aimed to encouraging higher levels of use.
There will be three tiers, called Select, Pro and Legendary and gamers will be able to see where they are standing on their normal PlayStation Network profiles. Initial Rewards are set to include Avatars, dynamic themes and content for the Home social space.
Sony is also preparing competitions that can only be accessed by those who join the PlayStation Rewards initiative.
Susan Panico, who is the senior director for the PlayStation Network, has explained on the official company blog that, “During the beta phase, the program will be focused on PlayStation 3 owners, but we hope to include PSP users as well not too far down the road.”
She added that the overall aim was to “create something that says, 'thank you' for being a loyal PlayStation fan.”
As for plans to expand the new Rewards program to Europe, Sony has said, “We will be evaluating the success of the programme in that region, and based on the response of consumers, we will consider rolling it out to other markets in the future.”
The Rewards program from Sony for PlayStation users just as Microsoft is preparing to increase the subscription price for the Xbox Live Gold subscription starting on November 1, making multiplayer play and exclusive access to some content even more expensive.
Sony must be hoping that the new Rewards concept and the free multiplayer that the PS3 offers will prove to be important selling points for the Sony home console in the important Christmas shopping season.