Sony Will Soon Reward You for Playing Your PlayStation

Sony's PlayStation console has become a favorite among many gamers, especially with exclusive titles like Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us raking in both awards and players.

Though the company's latest console, the PS5, has continued to be next-to-impossible to find, that hasn't stopped it from having a great sales performance as many hunt down its latest drop.

Sony announced the PlayStation Stars program coming to players soon — but what exactly is PlayStation Stars?

Announced in mid-July, PlayStation Stars is a loyalty program created by Sony for PlayStation users, rewarding them for logging more hours and completing certain "campaigns and activities."

"Our 'Monthly Check-In' campaign simply requires you to play any game to receive a reward, while other campaigns require you to win tournaments, earn specific trophies, or even be the first player to platinum a blockbuster title in your local time zone," VP of Network Advertising Grace Chen wrote.

Players will earn "loyalty points" for participating, which may be redeemed for credit on your PSN account or certain products from the PlayStation Store. If you have a subscription to PlayStation Plus already (it seems at any tier), you'll also receive points for making purchases through the PlayStation Store.

In addition to these points, Sony will also be debuting "digital collectibles" for players to collect that can be displayed in a virtual display case in the PlayStation App.

"They are 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," Grace wrote. "There will always be a new collectible to earn, an ultra rare collectible to strive for, or something surprising to collect just for fun."

The program will first roll out to the PlayStation app before it's made available on consoles.

Oftentimes, loyalty programs allow consumers to sign up at no charge. The goal with a loyalty program is to influence consumers to spend more money within the company. In the gaming world, though, it isn't uncommon for these types of programs to expect a little money out of pocket upfront. For example, GameStops' PowerUp Rewards program has a Pro tier that comes at an additional cost.

According to the press release on the PlayStation blog, PlayStation Stars will be "free to join" when it launches later in 2022. It's a separate program from PlayStation Plus, so even if you already have a membership with the gaming company, you'll need to sign up for this separately.

At this time, it isn't clear what the exchange range between points and currency will look like, though we'll likely know closer to the program's release.

At this time, there isn't an exact launch date for the loyalty program. During the company's State of Play presentation in September, it unveiled that the program would begin to roll out in its Asian markets first starting at the end of September, with the U.S. and other regions to follow in the weeks after. While this isn't an exact date, U.S. players can likely expect to have access to it by the end of October.