PlayStation Stars

Those wishing to participate in PlayStation Stars must register for the program through the PlayStation website using their PlayStation Network credentials. Since you can only see which rank you belong to on the website, it is essential to have the PlayStation app installed. There you can see which campaigns (more on that later) and rewards are available to you.

With the Stars program, the aim is to ‘work your way to the top’ as a PlayStation user. There are four different ranks or ‘levels’ available, starting with Level 1. Each level has its own advantages, and there is always a new milestone that you must achieve to be able to move to the next level.

For example, the milestone for Level 1 is not a difficult task: all you have to do is participate in PlayStation Stars and complete a few trivial tasks. But if you want to go to the next level, it is important that you buy games in the PlayStation Store. In addition, you also have to win some relatively rare trophies for those levels. For example, the highest level, Level 4, requires four purchased games from the PlayStation Store and 128 of those trophies.

Gamers can win trophies by completing specific tasks assigned by the loyalty program. PlayStation Stars is full of these types of ‘campaigns’, which range from in-game activities and tournaments to simply launching a game every month. You also earn loyalty points. Those loyalty points are more precious than you might think at first. You can use this to fill your PlayStation Network portfolio or even buy entire games, as long as you have enough of them. Unfortunately, one thing is clear: those loyalty points really don’t just flow in. The best way to get them is and will continue to pay for them…

PlayStation users with a Plus subscription will receive about ten loyalty points for every euro they spend in the PlayStation Store. So when you spend $100 in the Store, you’ll receive 1000 points, which is equivalent to $4 bonus in your PlayStation Network wallet – four percent of the amount spent. Not a huge discount, but perhaps nice for users who only purchase their games digitally. PlayStation Stars also offers games that you can buy in their entirety with loyalty points.

In addition, PlayStation Stars introduces digital collectibles: a kind of new trophies that can also be won through campaigns. The collectibles represent PlayStation souvenirs, such as a statuette from the PlayStation 3 or the PocketStation. Several iconic PlayStation characters are also represented, such as Punto the gondolier from Ape Escape 2.

It is important to know that the digital collectibles are not NFTs. There was speculation about this before, after Sony announced the virtual objects. The digital collectibles cannot be exchanged for money and are also not unique per owner. All a player can do is collect them and display them on their PlayStation Network account to other people.

As mentioned earlier, reaching higher levels in the Stars program brings more benefits to players. In the case of Levels 2 and 3, those perks are pretty harmless: you mainly get more of those cute collectibles. But once you have reached Level 4, which requires players to invest a relatively large amount of time, you will receive priority from Sony customer service. When you submit a chat request to Sony’s customer service, you will be helped sooner than customers who do not belong to the level.

Whether that advantage really makes a world of difference is the question, because how many people wait in such a chat at all? But its honesty is debatable. Not everyone has the same financial means to buy games from the PlayStation Store, or the time to complete hundreds of missions for all those trophies.

There are also rumors that there is even another level hidden. That level is said to have been discovered by data miners during an update of the PlayStation app. Level 5 appears to be accessible only by invitation of some sort, and as a reward for this level, users are said to receive a very rare digital collectible.

PlayStation Stars was announced last summer. Through the program, players can unlock rewards by completing a variety of games and participating in activities similar to Xbox Rewards. Points unlocked can be exchanged in an online store for credits in the PlayStation Store or ‘Digital Collectibles’.

A number of those digital figurines were shown during the State of Play livestream. Punto (from Ape Escape 2), Polygon Man (from the marketing for the first PlayStation) and a PlayStation 3 and PocketStation were shown. According to Sony, these Digital Collectibles will differ in terms of scarcity. Players can display the collected items in a digital display case and show them to PSN friends.

According to the company, most points and Digital Collectibles can be unlocked by participating in so-called ‘campaigns’. For example, there will be a campaign called ‘Hit Play/1994’, in which people who start the right game based on musical hints will unlock a Digital Collectible.

PlayStation Stars should be rolled out in Asia sometime this month and will be available in the West at a later date.

The company did so via PlayStation Blog. With PlayStation Stars, players can unlock rewards by completing a variety of games and participating in activities.

In that sense, PlayStation Stars will be comparable to the existing Xbox Rewards. For example, people can earn points by playing a game at least once a month, by unlocking certain Trophies, by being the first in a region to unlock a Platinum Trophy, and by purchasing games or other products through the PlayStation Store.

Points earned can be redeemed in a dedicated online store. This will unlock credit for the PlayStation Store again. There are also new rewards called Digital Collectibles. It is a kind of digital figurines based on game characters that can be collected, but Sony emphasizes that it is not about NFTs. “They can’t be traded or sold. They don’t use blockchain technology,” Grace Chen, vice president of network advertising, told The Washington Post.

PlayStation Stars should be rolled out in phases by region sometime later this year, although it is not yet clear which regions will participate first.