In 2022, Sony officially announced PlayStation Stars. Not to be confused with the ill-fated mascot platformer from the PS3 era PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (which itself should not be confused for the all-star PlayStation characters available in Fortnite’s Battle Royale), PS Stars was an interesting take on a customer loyalty program. Though in many ways a simple marketing tool to get PlayStation users to try, buy and play new games, the program did offer a slight twist in that members could earn and collect digital models of various PlayStation-related memorabilia.
Three years and a couple outages later, Sony officially announced that PlayStation Stars would be shutting down this November. In its few years of service, the program neither grew nor evolved – and as such will die out being just another failed half-baked idea (as PS Home was a couple generations ago). While there were few who even knew the service existed, and fewer still who enjoyed it, I will be sad to see PlayStation Stars go away; not because of what it was, but due to what it could have been.
Like I mentioned, PlayStation Stars lived and died as a highly niche service, so for all those unfamiliar, what exactly is/was PlayStation Stars? Announced back in July of 2022, PS Stars was described by Sony themselves as “a brand new loyalty program that celebrates you, the player, for being on this ever growing gaming journey with us” in which you would be able to “earn rewards by completing a variety of campaigns and activities” such as being “the first player to platinum a blockbuster title in your local time zone.”
Completing these time-limited challenges would get you a certain amount of digital currency which you could then exchange for select games, PSN Store credit or – the big ‘innovation’ – digital collectibles. Alternatively, some challenges simply rewarded you directly with said collectibles.
For a bit of fun historical context, even ahead of its launch PS Stars ran into some issues. Though fortunately a mostly-forgotten part of modern history, the announcement of PlayStation Stars came about around the same time as the rise in NFTs – leading some to fear that Sony was heading in that direction. Thankfully, this was not the case, and these collectibles existed solely for the joy and pleasures of collecting.
On paper, PlayStation Stars sounds like a fun and welcome addition, and in many ways it was! Without burying the lead however, there are plenty of reasons as to why the service is shutting down – and mostly deservedly so. That said, as a concept PlayStation Stars was a beneficial service to both PlayStation and its players.
The discontinuation of PlayStation Stars comes as a bit of a surprise, not due to the merits of the service itself, but due to the fact that PS Stars served as a marketing tool for PlayStation.
Of course, there's the argument that it’s difficult to market to an audience that does not exist, but for the few that did use PlayStation Stars, Sony had an extra layer of influence on them. While the rewards were unlikely to be worth it to many, those who engaged with the service were willingly subjected to additional marketing (such as “buy X new game to get this digital collectible / currency”) as well as cross-promotions with Sony’s other products (“the new Venom film is coming out so here’s a digital model of the character“).
These two are mere examples, but the real-world equivalents functioned pretty much in this exact same way.
Beyond the promotions, PS Stars benefited Sony themselves in other ways. Though somewhat harder to quantify, the service used the ever-common trick of giving players a unique digital currency which could then be traded out for real store credit (or the aforementioned digital collectibles).
As with all such currencies however, the real stickiness of them is in the fact that you’ll almost always have a couple digital points left over – not enough to redeem them for anything, but enough to make you want to use them. Fortunately, in this instance you can’t go out and buy PlayStation Stars points for real money, but it did mean you were more likely to engage with the service once you’ve got some points in the bank.
The final benefit which PlayStation Stars could have afforded Sony was in cultivating a greater and more dedicated fanbase. As a brand, PlayStation is established and liked enough for many to go out there and buy merch of various PlayStation IPs. From The Last of Us; to Horizon; God of War; Astro Bot; Spider-Man; Ratchet and Clank; and dozens more.
Beyond this, the most dedicated fans even attune themselves to PlayStation outside of the games itself. And so, while it certainly feels self-serving, the final element of potential in PlayStation Stars was in creating and maintaining that Nintendo level of fandom.
I personally will forever hold the Jim Ryan digital bobble head which Sony offered following his retirement close to my heart.
In all seriousness, while PlayStation Stars was of course a vehicle for Sony to advertise more to fans of the platform, the service did also directly benefit PlayStation players. Though we already touched upon some of them briefly, PS Stars was a free service which catered to different parts of the PlayStation audience.
For those who find pleasure in the sheer act of collecting, PS Stars had you covered. Despite their digital nature, the collectibles came in different forms with different rarities, and seemed to have genuine effort put into their designs. As mentioned, you had the various bobble heads for different PlayStation executives. You could also obtain high-quality character models based on first and 3rd-party IPs. Some functioned more as mini dioramas with both characters and environments present.
Last and certainly least, you could also obtain digital pin-badges – all of which could then be organised and placed on your ‘display case', feeding into the inherent joys of collecting.
Those that wanted more tangible rewards were also looked after. As mentioned, you could trade out your PS Stars points for different PlayStation Store offerings – including just straight up ‘purchasing’ PlayStation Store wallet funds. Though a somewhat slow grind, in the 3 years of its existence members could have obtained a pretty substantial sum of wallet funds, making those £70 games a bit of an easier pill to swallow.
To be reductionist for a moment, PlayStation Stars was ultimately a loyalty program; something which the console maker has lacked for generations now; and so its existence was a net positive.
All that said, the service itself was a half-baked and ill-conceived idea which fell so far short of its potential that its discontinuation was only a matter of time. By far the biggest misstep with PS Stars was in limiting it to the smartphone-based PlayStation app – meaning it was not only more awkward to access, but its digital rewards felt less tangible.
Despite the harsh limitation placed upon PS Stars, the service remained buggy throughout its entire life cycle. While nothing majorly breaking, viewing your various collectibles was not only a slow endeavour, but an unfulfilling one, with the available shelf being cheaply-made, ugly, static and flat. Again, the models themselves look good and are certainly high quality, but aside from clicking on a statue and seeing its rotate slowly there's nothing you can do with them. Hell, you can’t even properly view them, being limited to a small window on your phone’s screen with no ability to zoom, pan or anything else.
In addition, the challenges themselves wound up being much less exciting than promised, with the most creative ones simply requiring you to unlock a basic trophy from a specific game.
Things could have been so very different. And we know this because Sony themselves have previously made an enticing and addicting digital collectible system in Astro’s Playroom.
Of course, I wasn’t expecting PlayStation Stars to give us a fully explorable room featuring all of my various collectibles, but having a bit more personality would’ve been nice.
Instead of a boring JPEG of a shelf which is confined to a submenu on the PlayStation app, PS Stars could have been a dedicated third tab on the PS5 home page, in which you could easily access and view your 3D rendered shelf featuring all your various collectibles. Instead of being a cut-out of the model, the shelf could feature the actual character models – perhaps even performing some basic animations such as waving or jumping when you hover over them.
If you wanted to inspect your rewards more closely, you could then ‘pick up’ the model, allowing you to rotate it, zoom in and out, pan, scan and whatever else you’d like. As with Astro’s Playroom, the models could also include a small description of the game, its release year, and whatever other small titbits the devs want to add.
I mentioned PlayStation Home earlier for a very particular reason. Like the ill-fated PS3 social hub, PlayStation Stars showed plenty of promise, and very well could have been its own niche within the community – similar to the Trophy hunters among us. Unlike PS home either, PlayStation Stars is a single player experience, meaning there is little upkeep or server costs, and the service itself would not have needed to evolve to stay relevant.
Throughout my time as a PlayStation Stars member, I managed to claim quite a few cool collectibles. Alongside a couple instances of £5 PS Store coupons, I also managed to obtain digital collectibles of Eve from Stellar Blade; Sonic the Hedgehog; Venom; Clank (of Ratchet and Clank fame); Gemma from Monster Hunter Wilds; a white base PS4; a PS4 Pro; a Clicker from The Last of Us – and of course my prized possession – the bobble heads of Jim Ryan and Shuhei Yoshida.
As it stands, all these and more are currently stuck in a laggy, slow and ugly “display case” which takes ages to load properly – and when it does, looks wholly unattractive. The PlayStation Stars display case is a genuine embarrassment and so I understand why Sony has decided to end the service. As discussed however, things could have been quite different.
Given enough time, effort and development on a proper service which sits prominently as a 3rd tab next to the ‘Games’ and ‘Media’ options on the PS5 home menu, and Sony could have had a loyalty program; a new achievement system to sit alongside Trophies; and a cool new PS5 exclusive software feature all wrapped up into one.
Unfortunately, something like this is only worth doing if you do it right…and Sony did things very very wrong. And so, come the end of PlayStation Stars next year, I won’t be mourning what we have lost, but I will always think about what could have been – and it could’ve been SO GOOD!
KitGuru says: What do you think of PlayStation Stars? Had you even heard of it? Would you like to see the addition of a digital collectible shelf / display case as part of the PS5 software itself? Let us know down below.`
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KitGuru Games: PlayStation Stars – The Epitome of Missed Potential first appeared on
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