I have written a number of posts on PlayStation lately (being a PS3 owner, it makes sense that I have a fair bit of involvement in their issues) so I will try to keep this to the last post for a while.
Last week PlayStation announced what it would be doing in order to compensate PlayStation Network (PSN) users for the excessive network outage. Here is the summary of free swag:
- A choice of 2 of 5 free games for the PS3
- Dead Nation
- Infamous
- LittleBigPlanet
- SuperStardust HD
- Wipeout HD + Fury
- A choice of 2 of 4 free games for the PSP
- LittleBigPlanet PSP
- ModNation Racers PSP
- Pursuit Force
- Killzone Liberation
- A month free of PlayStation Plus for non-subscribers and 60 days free for subsribers
- Various free virtual downloads and free movies
Detailed PlayStation Welcome Back package
So what’s your take on the “welcome back package”?
Personally, I think it’s half-decent, surprisingly. However, they clearly have future sales in mind with all of the freebies they have provided (they have treated this as a sort of promotion). For example, most of the games mentioned are prequels to new games on the market – thereby getting you addicted to a game series in the hopes you will then run out and by the new game. Also, the 30 days of free PlayStation Plus subscription can be seen as a “1-month free trial” with the hopes of getting new subscribers.
Very clever Sony. I see what you did there. I am not unhappy with the package but there definitely seems to be some clever marketing trickery at play here.
