Sony Postpones PlayStation Rewards Indefinitely

[Garrett Grothe]

Sony Postpones PlayStation Rewards Indefinitely

PlayStation Rewards, originally set to launch in April of this year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104750-Sonys-PlayStation-Rewards-Brings-Loyalty-Program-to-PS3s], has been delayed for an undisclosed amount of time.


While Sony has not explicitly cancelled the PlayStation Rewards program, an email was sent out to those taking part in the test program letting them know that the program is not launching in April as originally planned. "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," read a portion of the email.

When Kotaku reached out to Sony for comment on the delay, Sony reaffirmed that the rewards program will either undergo significant changes or might even be cancelled completely. "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," a PlayStation representative told Kotaku.

PlayStation Rewards was set to offer a variety of rewards such as unique XMB themes, avatars, goodies in PlayStation Home and more for playing new games, rating games and other such tasks. The higher tiered rewards even offered trips to electronics shows such as the Consumer Electronics Show. The program played out not unlike an RPG, with three "levels" testers could attain by completing the available tasks.

It's a shame that PlayStation Rewards isn't launching on time seeing as how the rewards were much, much more rewarding than the competition's current rewards program [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105763-Snag-Some-Free-MS-Points-With-the-Xbox-Live-Rewards-Program].

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/#!5786588/sony-nixes-its-playstation-rewards-program]

Permalink

 

[nickpy]

"competition's current rewards program" <http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/competition's%20current%20rewards%20program>

= broken link.

 

[Garrett Grothe]

Fixed. Thanks!

 

[GonzoGamer]

I had such high hopes for the vast potential of the ps3 when I bought it. Potential that will never be met.
It seems pretty obvious now that sony is done failing to improve the user experience and are now just concerned with the constant and futile battle against hackers.
It?s too bad because if they gave the ps3 even half decent support, it really could?ve done everything and there would be a lot less people interested in hacking it.
Not like I'm going to but I get the feeling that it couldn't hurt. It?s probably my last playstation anyway.

 

[Jamous]

Awwwwww. I want it though. So annoying.

 

[mjc0961]

As someone who was in the program, I can say that they made the right call by not opening it to the public this Friday. It didn't work right at all. Nearly every post in the beta forum is people talking about how their progress never updates despite all the activity did, and yes, it happened to me as well.
Furthermore, the program didn't keep any visible records of what things you had done towards leveling up. It didn't update quests in a timely manner: example, they added a quest for getting 4 trophies in LittleBigPlanet 2, which was release a few weeks after the game had come out. By then I had all but 3 or 4 trophies in the game, so I should have gotten that quest marked as complete right away, right? Not according to Sony. It took somewhere between a week and two weeks for it to notice "Oh yeah, you have completed this quest" and move it to the completed bin, and then another one to two weeks for my progress bar to fill up from it.

The program was just pretty much broken and NOT ready for public use, and they made the right call by delaying its release. And if they want to cancel it outright, fine by me. Another big flaw with this rewards program was that it offered no real rewards. Club Nintendo gives you swag, Xbox Live Rewards gives you money, Playstation Rewards gives you an avatar, a theme, and a little shirt for your guy in Home to wear. Oh wow, thanks for all that generosity Sony.

It's a shame that PlayStation Rewards isn't launching on time seeing as how the rewards were much, much more rewarding than the competition's current rewards program [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105763-Snag-Some-Free-MS-Points-With-the-Xbox-Live-Rewards-Program].

What is this I don't even

Sony was offering people avatars, home items, and themes. Digital items that have no real value (those trips you mentioned weren't offered to high ranking members of the beta, they were open drawings that everyone can enter regardless of rank; thus they aren't rewards for doing well in the program).
Microsoft is giving people cold hard cash to spend on any content you want. Because of the Xbox LIVE Rewards program, I've earned enough points that when added with the few points I had left sitting in my Xbox Live account, I was able to get Mass Effect 2's Arrival DLC today without spending any extra money. Let me repeat that, Microsoft gave me currency which I was able to spend on some DLC.

How in the hell do you figure that a few themes and home clothes are more rewarding than money you can use to buy whatever you want from the Xbox Live Marketplace?! If you still want digital clothes or other useless stuff, you can still get that with Xbox Live Rewards. Or you can get games or DLC, which are worth a hell of a lot more than a shirt for an avatar or a little PNG image for your profile.

Even the random swag you can get from Club Nintendo is worth more than Sony's offerings of digital decorations.

I had such high hopes for the vast potential of the ps3 when I bought it. Potential that will never be met.
It seems pretty obvious now that sony is done failing to improve the user experience and are now just concerned with the constant and futile battle against hackers.
It?s too bad because if they gave the ps3 even half decent support, it really could?ve done everything and there would be a lot less people interested in hacking it.

Yep, that sounds about right. Instead of supporting the platform's existing features and bring us new ones that are useful (not lulz inducing like the extremely unintuitive video editor), they take out this and they take out that, and now they get their console cracked wide open and it's going to be the PSP all over again where we just get update after update that is just to try and stop hackers, but gets cracked in hours so here's a new update, and so on. Every now and then, they'll also toss a feature in (like cloud support that you have to pay $50 a year for so you can copy your very stupid copy protected saves or else you will lose them if your console ever dies) to keep up appearances, but at this point, we've pretty much seen all of the "everything" that the PS3 is going to do.

I would love to be wrong, but I have to be realistic. This is Sony we're talking about here, after all.

 

[Zer0Saber]

It's a shame that PlayStation Rewards isn't launching on time seeing as how the rewards were much, much more rewarding than the competition's current rewards program [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105763-Snag-Some-Free-MS-Points-With-the-Xbox-Live-Rewards-Program].

What is this I don't even

Sony was offering people avatars, home items, and themes. Digital items that have no real value (those trips you mentioned weren't offered to high ranking members of the beta, they were open drawings that everyone can enter regardless of rank; thus they aren't rewards for doing well in the program).
Microsoft is giving people cold hard cash to spend on any content you want. Because of the Xbox LIVE Rewards program, I've earned enough points that when added with the few points I had left sitting in my Xbox Live account, I was able to get Mass Effect 2's Arrival DLC today without spending any extra money. Let me repeat that, Microsoft gave me currency which I was able to spend on some DLC.

How in the hell do you figure that a few themes and home clothes are more rewarding than money you can use to buy whatever you want from the Xbox Live Marketplace?! If you still want digital clothes or other useless stuff, you can still get that with Xbox Live Rewards. Or you can get games or DLC, which are worth a hell of a lot more than a shirt for an avatar or a little PNG image for your profile.

Even the random swag you can get from Club Nintendo is worth more than Sony's offerings of digital decorations.

and then the troll was full from his meal

 

[GonzoGamer]

Yep, that sounds about right. Instead of supporting the platform's existing features and bring us new ones that are useful (not lulz inducing like the extremely unintuitive video editor), they take out this and they take out that, and now they get their console cracked wide open and it's going to be the PSP all over again where we just get update after update that is just to try and stop hackers, but gets cracked in hours so here's a new update, and so on. Every now and then, they'll also toss a feature in (like cloud support that you have to pay $50 a year for so you can copy your very stupid copy protected saves or else you will lose them if your console ever dies) to keep up appearances, but at this point, we've pretty much seen all of the "everything" that the PS3 is going to do.

I would love to be wrong, but I have to be realistic. This is Sony we're talking about here, after all.

Hey, I would love it if we?re both wrong too (it breaks my heart to think how much the POS cost me) but as you pointed out with the psp example, history suggests that the ps3 will just go downhill from here.
Frankly, I can understand why they might want to charge for the cloud service (not $50 a year but something like $20 a year would be reasonable) as it does require hardware and maintenance on their end. The fact remains that many of us who bought a ps3 over a 360 did so because we didn?t want to receive a regular bill to pay for our game console. But that doesn?t mean that we should just have functions taken away from us like otheros or let them fade into dysfunction like the web browser. They should still be able to add plenty of interesting functions to people who aren?t interested in paying a regular bill and properly maintaining the ones that are already in there.

Hell, I would be happy if they made some of the functions they already have more consistent. I have a couple of games that I can record video from. That?s pretty cool, but why only Just Cause 2 and Noby Boy. I know those games are the work of geniuses but I don't think that's the reason. Same thing with the custom soundtrack, it?s a really cool thing to have for the four games I have with the function. Now I?ve heard all sorts of sob stories about sony not being able to build it into the ps3 because of EA sandbagging them or MS having a patent but it?s obvious that devs can include the function in their games and sony can require the devs to include the function like they require devs to include the (now completely) worthless trophies.

I just don?t understand sony?s priorities sometimes.

It seems as though sony is now only interested in tripping up (because any sort of long term goal is futile) their illegitimate users but in making that the top priority they are completely ignoring (actually ignoring would be preferable to) disenfranchising their legitimate user base which is shrinking. This equation is as simple as 2+2.
It?s too bad because the potential was there for the ps3 to really do everything, unfortunately that tag line seems like more of a joke now.

 

[-Dragmire-]

"But rest assured, we will continue to thank loyal and devoted customers like you with innovative offerings,"

I'm either really bitter or this sounds overly pretentious... probably both

"...we will be refocusing our efforts in the near future to further developing PlayStation Plus and our other network services,"

you know, dropping a rewards program to focus on a subscription service is not "thanking loyal customers".