Now that some PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been restored and you’re once again enjoying online gaming and entertainment, we’re happy to provide details about the “Welcome Back” appreciation program for customers in North America. We developed the program as an expression of our gratitude for your patience, support and continued loyalty during the service outage. From all of us at PlayStation, thank you and welcome back!
This package will be made available to all existing registered PlayStation Network and Qriocity users in North America (US and Canada), and will be made available shortly after we have fully restored the service. More specific details about these offers and eligibility requirements will be posted as the services go live.
All PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.
- Dead Nation
- inFAMOUS
- LittleBigPlanet
- Super Stardust HD
- Wipeout HD + Fury
For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.
- LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
- ModNation Racers
- Pursuit Force
- Killzone Liberation
- A selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.
- 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.
- Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.
- Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
- Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
- To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.
We’d like to thank all of our publishing and development partners who’ve contributed to the Welcome Back program, including Bigbig Studios, Codeglue, Digital Leisure, Guerilla Games, Heavy Water, Housemarque, Lockwood, Loot, Mass Media, Media Molecule, SCE Cambridge Studios, SCE Studio Liverpool, SCE San Diego Studios, and Sucker Punch Productions. We couldn’t have created such a compelling package without them!
As a reminder, you will be able to access the above content shortly after services are fully restored. We are doing everything we can to make that happen as soon as possible. Please visit the following sites for more information about the Welcome Back program in Europe and Latin America.
Thank you again for your support!
Sounds pretty awesome. I'll be enjoying my copy of LBP and Super Stardust when this comes out.
In that selection of five games, which frankly is a little shallow, there are some I don't recognize at all and it seems likely anyone who wants any of them already has them. The PSP is the same but it's an even crappier selection.
A selection of free movie rentals. Translation: Sony will dump a lot of their poorly-selling movie titles as free rentals because it costs them nothing to do so. If I wanted to rent movies through my PS3, I'd be on Netflix already where the only cost is the monthly membership and I could rent as many as I liked. This is just a cheap ploy to get more people using their own rental service, and it won't work.
Speaking of cheap ploys: Free Plus membership for a momth. That's what you do when you want to entice someone to get hooked on a new service, not to apologize for a disaster of this magnitude. They're actually trying to get people to spend much more money with them. The music stuff is the same deal. I'll grant there's a little value in this, but this is not an apology. This is like a store offering you a free $5 gift card, knowing you can't spend less than $20 anyway.
Bill Harris of Dubious Quality had a much more elegant solution: Significant discounts on all online content for a certain period, with Sony eating that discount. This would encourage people to try games they otherwise might not have and get them back on the network in droves, while it would also compensate publishers who got screwed.
(But what about Plus, you might say--doesn't that offer game discounts? Sure, and some free games. And if you get something free through Plus and your membership ever expires, you lose the freebie. Plus's discounts are held hostage to your continued support. That's why I never signed up for it myself.)
As it stands this compensation package holds nothing particularly attractive for many users, so those users will feel (correctly) that Sony is just giving lip service to their apology. This will not defrost consumer relations very much.
Lummox JR