As part of Sony’s most recent State of Play event, the company announced that some Asian regions will be the first to gain access to Sony PlayStation Stars in late September. After that, it’ll be released in the US and Europe in the following weeks via the PlayStation App on iOS and Android devices, before it’s released for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles later.
As part of this “free-to-join” program, anyone can earn points that can be converted into real cash value. Earn points by playing any games to receive a reward in the ‘Monthly Check-In’ campaign, or by winning tournaments, and earning specific trophies like the Platinum Trophy specific to a time zone.
The Washington Post reports that the first person to get the Platinum trophy in certain games will receive an extra special award. Although it’s unclear exactly how this’ll work, it might be a territory race rather than a global one, since it’s within a local time zone.
It’s also expected that players will be able to collect virtual figures of famous PlayStation mascots and hardware, including Unto the Gondolier from Ape Escape 2, Polygon Man, Toro and Kuro, as well as a PlayStation 3 console and a PocketStation device. Currently, it’s unclear whether the points can be used to exchange for the virtual figures, but it has been suggested that the points may be redeemed for credit on PSN accounts or certain products from the PlayStation Store. For PlayStation Store purchases, PlayStation Plus (at any tier) members are eligible for points.
PlayStation Network vice president Grace Chen said “A campaign may be a point-earning or collectible-earning activity. One of our first campaigns is “Hit Play/1994,” where members who correctly launch games that match song-based clues receive a special collectible. More campaign details to come.”
Previously, Chen told The Washington Post that the PlayStation Stars program isn’t NFT-related: “You can’t trade them or sell them. It’s not leveraging any blockchain technologies and definitely not NFTs.”
The PlayStation Star program will mark another upgrade to Sony’s digital content offerings, after the launch of PlayStation Plus in June 2022.
The basic subscription tier for the new PlayStation Plus is similar to the previous version. The middle and most premium tiers provide access to hundreds of extra games through a subscription service similar to Xbox Game Pass.