Sony To Launch New 'PlayStation Rewards' Loyalty Program

Sony is unveiling PlayStation Rewards, a free new loyalty program for PlayStation users that aims to incentivize and reward its users for playing games and engaging with the community. It launches an invitation-only beta to select users tomorrow. "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," explains PlayStation Network senior director Susan Panico on the official blog. She describes the program as one that will offer players status and rewards for using the service as they would normally -- thus it intends both to thank them and encourage them to use it more. It offers three reward "tiers" based on usage: Select, Pro and Legendary, and players can track their progress in their PSN profile. Rewards include exclusive PSN avatars that act as evidence of status, dynamic themes, and content for PlayStation Home. Sony also plans to hold sweepstakes and giveaways, like a paid trip to 2011 CES, and entries into these competitions will be exclusive to rewards members. "That’s just the start and our plan is to continually grow and improve the reward offering as the program itself evolves," says Panico. The beta is currently open only to invited PlayStation Plus subscribers and members of Sony's "Gamer Advisory Panel", a select group of the PlayStation community's most enthusiastic users. Sony hopes that getting the rewards program tested with its most loyal and active users first will be the best way to refine it.