PlayStation Rewards program delayed [update: Sony responds]

by Griffin McElroy on Mar 29th 2011 11:00AM

Following a lengthy beta process that kicked off last fall and ends this Thursday, the PlayStation Rewards program was supposed to launch for all PSN users next month. Apparently, the parameters of its loyalty program still need some tightening up -- in an email sent to beta participants, Sony explained, "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."

We've contacted Sony to find out if the program's been delayed indefinitely, or if the company has a new launch window in mind. Hopefully it's the latter, since we've been dying to find out the compelling narrative supporting its system of Quests. Are dragons involved? We're going to assume dragons are involved.

Update: Things are starting to lean towards "delayed indefinitely." A PlayStation representative responded to our query, explaining, "After careful consideration and evaluation following the PlayStation Rewards beta, we have decided not to roll out the program to the public at this time." He added, "We remain committed to providing the best overall consumer experience for our users, and we will be refocusing our efforts in the near future to further developing PlayStation Plus and our other network services."

Tags: beta, delay, playstation, playstation-rewards, ps3, sony

Reader Comments (55)

looks like hackers ruined something else

good job

@A Burger

You know, the two of us together become a delicious combination.

@The Pork

Why stop at two?

@The Pork LMAO

@A Sandwich

Whoa! When did joystiq turn into reddit?

@A Burger
What does this have anything to do with hacking?

@A Burger Blaming hackers for anything is getting old. You're really going to blame people for doing whatever the hell they want the things they purchase? I haven't hacked my PS3, but the small amount of people who have aren't breaking the industry.

@mywhitenoise

Quiet! Can't you see they're building a delicious Pork Burger Sandwich. Priorities man!

I'd assume Sony would rather integrate all their incentives into PS+ and entice more people to sign up for that.

I don't blame them, PS+ has had some impressive offerings as of late.

@Lerkero

Well non-Plus users apparently don't deserve to be rewarded anyway.
I'll just reward myself by using my 360 more than PS3 like I do anyway

@gamermwm "Hurr, I don't want to pay Sony for an optional service, I'll just pay Microsoft for a mandatory service!"

@Lerkero

I'm a rewards beta tester and can tell you that's not the case. They're just going to fix the rewards "counter" because some testers haven't hit any rewards tier. It wasn't ready to be released to public because of that. You already have to spend money to get rewards points so and making it PS+ would almost kill the PSR program.

Hopefully they'll fix all the weird little quirks before they roll it out to everybody.

At least they are sending out free t-shirts. That'll be pretty sweet.

@doubtingthomas where did you hear that? I'm a beta tester and I havent heard anything about free t-shirts. Is this confirmed?

@ThePunisher138

It was in the email they should've sent to you.

@Ospov shit. I didnt get anything! Not even in my spam. Did you guys get the email today?

@ThePunisher138

Got my email yesterday. It'll probably end up being a medium. I don't know any grown men that wear medium! Damn them for my free item!

IIRC, this program had some weird quirks, like not all games counted for credit, just some first party stuff.

Needs to be more like what GAP tried to be: based more on registering games and contributing tot he community.

There not making enough money. It's getting to costly to keep the network going and PS plus is not making up the difference. Be ready whe whole network will be going the Xbox live way pay 60 a year. Mark my words.

@(Unverified)
You're an idiot.

@mywhitenoise Why am I a idiot. IF you think it's going to be free for ever you are crazy. The cost to keep this stuff up and running is staggering. It might not happen this generation of consoles but it will happen.

@(Unverified)

they need to be ready for me to not pay.

@(Unverified)
Sources for this so-called "staggering cost"? Hm...didn't think so.

See, the difference between XBox Live and PSN is that Microsoft handles pretty much every single online infrastructure for games with just a handful of exceptions (EA's games being the biggest example of this). Sony, on the other hand, tells everyone who isn't first party to go find their own online infrastructure. Apart from their own first party games, Sony doesn't do much in terms of the online infrastructure upkeep.

So no, the cost is not "staggering". Sony doesn't do much in that department for better or worse, actually.

@(Unverified)

People have been saying this since DAY 1. Oh, next year they're going to charge. Oh, next year. Next year.

Guess what? Never going to happen. That's HOW they differentiate themselves from xbox live. Not charging is worth a fortune to them -- people buy ps3s because of that.

@ferret I work in the IT industry let me tell you all of that hardware and and all that bandwidth is not cheap. Especially for something the size of the PlayStation network. It's going to happen sooner or later. Look at what the major internet providers are doing. They are capping speeds and bandwidth. The free for all is over, and all of us are going to suffer for it.

@PointlessPuppies - For worse. Definitely for worse (although I'll admit that I can't see myself paying for two online subscriptions, so I'm thankful that I don't need to pay on the PS3 whenever an exclusive like KZ3 comes out that I'd like to play online)

I think we'll see an Xbox Live style mandatory cost for online multiplayer on the Playstation 4, but for now, the profits from Home seem to be keeping the ship afloat (and picking up slack for PS+).

@(Unverified)

The fact that you're damn near illiterate and employed is vaguely upsetting to me.

Damn! I was *this* close to Legendary status!!!

@(Unverified) I believe in you! Also, I dislike the fact that you had to purchase a good amount of things for status.

@MontEdZuma

yep I got to PRO level then as soon as i stopped buying things my status didnt go up anymore. So im stuck at about 1/3 completed to legendary so oh well i guess.

For a rewards program to work, they have to make enough money that they don't need elsehwere to cover the program. Usually there is some 'cost' to the program in some respect, that may not be apparent.

Yesterday it was announced that a couple of major banks were discontinuing their rewards program for new customers and are looking at options for existing customers

Basically companies are looking for new revenue streams and are trying to retain as much revenue as possible.

A rewards program is great, but is it something that Sony needs? And is it something they can afford right now? The economy is still recovering. I think people are purchasing less, or being more choosey about what they do purchase.

@Starcade

Kind of reminds me of the roll-out of the new AMC program...

$12/year, $6 for existing rewards members.

RIP old program for AMC which gave out free movie tickets every several movie ticket purchases....

I think the rewards program was a joke.. oh hey you played X amount of games .. HERES A WALLPAPER !!

oh my i got a wallpaper ... i'm soo happy ... but seriously tho .. tho i could never be part of it as i am in Canada i think this rewards program was a joke almost as soon as they announced it. i don't care about free avatars i don't care about Dynamic Themes .. OR wallpaper or having SELECT on my avatar sorry but Sony can come up with something better then that.

@HardBoiled2009
which is likely why the cancelled it. People didn't want cheap rewards that sony could roll out with limited investment. Players wanted "good" rewards, which would cost more, which sony was not willing to do.

@HardBoiled2009

sony needs to realize that most of us that play PS3 don't really care about all of the extra bells and whistles like avatars and wallpapers. If I wanted all of that stuff there is another console for that.

Just put this money towards more 1st party games

From the wording of the email they sent out to all the beta testers, it does sound like the rewards program is going away and not coming back. I only managed 'Select' status, but I presume I get to keep my little Sackboy Select avatar, and the email did inform us that anyone who reached 'Select' or above should expect a T-shirt in the mail, so I guess downloading Pulse in 1080p three times wasn't a COMPLETE waste of bandwidth.

Hmm, this sounds like when the blew off their UMD to digital program for the PSP Go.

Why not give away points (or in their case dollars) like XBL Rewards does, rather than wallpapers and stuff?

That would entice people.

@Vcize
They can't. One of the few (if not the only) true advantage to using Microsoft Space Bucks over simple dollars is that when you're dealing with real money, Sony can't just give it away because it's literally giving out cash, which brings up a wide array of issues they must comply with so that it's perfectly legal. Space Bucks never has to deal with that, seeing as it's artificial currency. It can be handed out willy nilly.

@PointlessPuppies

^ that guy pretty much summed it all up. Nice work.

@PointlessPuppies

How is that any different than gift cards or "credits" that a thousand other places use?

For instance, when you preorder a game at Amazon and they give you a $20 "credit" that is basically $20 to spend anywhere in the videogames section. Couldn't Sony just do the exact same thing on the PSN?

@Vcize

I guess the issue would be that Sony is just a marketplace and doesn't actually own the content.

I still don't see how that's any different than iTunes though, or the Amazon MP3 store. Amazon gives away MP3 credits and VoD credits all the time which are digital goods they don't own just like the stuff you can buy on the PSN.

The program didn't stand a chance. It never updated properly and was too vague on how to earn levels. It would have been a huge mistake to release it with all of its flaws.

Well, that's disappointing. I just redeemed a Japanese fan with Club Nintendo which turned out to be quite nice.

Way to go Sony... LAME

In my experience, my friends who play online are on PS3, and when they want to play alone or with their kids or watch Netflix are on their Xbox. I am talking about cross-platform games.
I liked the idea behind the Rewards, though the execution was lacking. Not knowing what actions equate to what reward value and the erratic updating need to be fixed. Otherwise, I liked the incentive to play more.

@Quest

Your experience is backwards to 90% of people's.

The rewards program just felt superfluous in terms of "pay for later rewards" features on the PS3. In fact, PS+ is pretty much the same concept, but a little more blunt ("literally pay me more now" instead of "do this series of challenges which can only be completed by paying more") and actually more effective (you know, you get entire PSN games for free, etc.).

Though I might be biased in this. I never like or follow rewards programs at any function.

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PlayStation Rewards program delayed [update: Sony responds]

Reader Comments (55)

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:05AM A Burger said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:10AM The Pork said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:18AM A Sandwich said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:19AM killermonkey915 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:31AM CypherSignal said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:34AM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:49PM NIck PSN ID Rattlehead91 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 6:38PM Maverick128 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:11AM Lerkero said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:38PM gamermwm said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 3:15PM I am a machineee said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 6:57PM BlazeKing said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:13AM Ospov said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:22AM doubtingthomas said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 2:51PM ThePunisher138 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 2:55PM Ospov said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 3:43PM ThePunisher138 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 6:40PM Maverick128 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:30AM mrantimatter said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:33AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:35AM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:46AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:06PM eat it said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:31PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:22PM ferret said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:51PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 4:07PM BananaBoat said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 7:19PM Haizeus said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:33AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:58AM MontEdZuma said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:19PM ChaseHammerJ said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:44AM Starcade said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 2:22PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 11:53AM HardBoiled2009 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:02PM Laivindil said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:11PM eat it said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:05PM milespieri said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:11PM Marco le Polo said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:13PM Vcize said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:38PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:14PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:45PM Vcize said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:47PM Vcize said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:21PM serge808 said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:21PM Orange Juice said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:32PM MikeStrathmore said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:37PM Quest said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:47PM Vcize said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 12:42PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Mar 29th 2011 1:47PM (Unverified) said

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