A few years ago, Sony issued a beta program that rewarded PlayStation gamers for gaming on PlayStation products, and Sony today has announced that a very similar and more sustainable and diversified rediscovery of that beta program is officially live.
The idea behind the program, which is officially titled simply Sony Rewards, is that consumers can buy any Sony product with the added incentive of receiving points that can be redeemed for more Sony content later. From cameras to tablets, from phones to games, the only limitation in this rewards program is that everything must be purchased from either the PlayStation store Sony Online Entertainment, which can be reached via PC or PlayStation consoles, or "authorized retailers," such as the official Sony Store, Walmart, Gamestop, Target, and Best Buy; this isn’t really a limitation, but this deal cannot be utilized with local and small-time retail chains. For every dollar spent, a point is earned. Like any rewards system, the amount of money spent in relation to actual rewards is much more, and the store for redeeming points reflects that, where a game like Batman: Arkham Origins requires 5999 points to be rewarded the new game. Essentially, every dollar spent yields one cent in rewards, which may sound dismal, but after spending all this money for upcoming content and hardware for the PlayStation 4 launch (or even upgrading a phone or laptop), doesn’t a free game or peripheral sound pretty good?
Customers who have a PlayStation Card will receive even more points for purchases made with Sony’s official credit card, where all purchases on the PlayStation Network will receive ten times the earned points and purchases on the Sony Store online, as well as "authorized retailers," will yield three times the points; making purchases with the PlayStation Card at any other outlet will still yield reward points based on the normal rate detailed above.
To get started, navigate to this address and link your PSN account to the Rewards program, and you can start earning points on your next purchase.
Unfortunately, as a few comments on the official PlayStation Blog post have indicated, this program is exclusive to the United States, so customers in Canada will not be able to take advantage of Sony Rewards.
Let us know what you think of this new program? Does it give you incentive to buy digital games and content now, or does that need for a physical copy still overpower this deal?