Sony is launching a new PlayStation Stars loyalty program later this year, and it includes “digital collectibles” rewards. PlayStation Stars will be a free service that allows PlayStation players to earn loyalty points and rewards by completing activities. Points can be redeemed for benefits, including a PSN wallet fund to put toward a game purchase.
“Points can be redeemed in a catalog that may include PSN wallet funds and select PlayStation Store products,” explains Grace Chen, Sony’s vice president of PlayStation network advertising, loyalty, and licensed merchandise. “As an additional benefit, PlayStation Plus members enrolled in PlayStation Stars automatically earn points for purchases on PlayStation Store.”
Sony is also bundling “digital collectibles” as part of PlayStation Stars. That might immediately sound like NFTs, but it’s not. While the company doesn’t mention the blockchain or NFTs in its blog post, in an interview with The Washington Post, the company makes it clear “it is not leveraging any blockchain technologies and definitely not NFTs.”
Instead, these collectibles will be digital representations of figurines and iconic characters from PlayStation games and maybe even some digital versions of historic Sony devices.
There will be new collectibles to earn regularly, including “ultra rare” ones. Sony describes these collectibles as rewards, so it doesn’t sound like they’ll be available to purchase directly. PlayStation players will be able to earn the main loyalty points through challenges, like a monthly one that requires players to play any game to get a reward. Sony doesn’t detail how collectibles are rewarded.
The PlayStation Stars loyalty points system seems a lot like Microsoft’s own rewards program for Xbox players or Nintendo’s Gold Points. Microsoft Rewards includes quests, activities, and monthly surveys that reward points. Reward points are also available for using Bing and Microsoft’s Edge browser. Nintendo’s Gold Points can be earned when players purchase a new game and used for digital purchases on the Nintendo Switch.
