Following the revamp of PlayStation Plus with its three new tiers – Essential, Extra and Premium – Sony recently announced a new loyalty program called PlayStation Stars. It involves completing different campaigns – like earning specific Trophies or playing a game each month – to earn Loyalty Points. It’s currently in testing and will be available later this year for free.
In addition to redeeming Loyalty Points for PSN funds and specific items on the PlayStation Store, Sony also revealed “digital collectibles” that could be earned. They were described as “digital representations of things that PlayStation fans enjoy, including figurines of beloved and iconic characters from games and other forms of entertainment, as well as cherished devices that tap into Sony’s history of innovation.”
Of course, one could easily assume these to be equivalent to non-fungible tokens or NFTs, which have generated a fair amount of controversy in the past several months. Speaking to The Washington Post, VP of network advertising, loyalty and licensed merchandise Grace Chen said these are “definitely not NFTs.”
“It’s definitely not NFTs. Definitely not. You can’t trade them or sell them. It is not leveraging any blockchain technologies and definitely not NFTs.” That’s three uses of the word “definitely”, which should be good enough. For now, the digital collectibles sound like a fun little side activity and Sony promises “a new collectible to earn, an ultra-rare collectible to strive for, or something surprising to collect just for fun.”
All of this is “just the beginning.” PlayStation Stars is slated to evolve with time. It will roll out regionally in different phases this year so stay tuned for more details.
