We’ve known that some sort of apology schwag pack has been in the pipeline since the early days of the PlayStation Network outage. As the downtime stretched to nearly one month, many were wondering how Sony was going to make up for all of that lost online multiplayer time. To be fair, many others weren’t concerned at all, stating that Sony doesn’t owe them any sort of merchandise as an apology since the PSN is a free service anyways.
Well, whether you want it or not, Sony has announced the details of their apology, dubbed the “Welcome Back Customer Appreciation Program.”
Over on the PlayStation blog, embattled updater Patrick Seybold says that the welcome back package will be made available shortly after Sony has “fully restored the service.” Of course, online multiplayer was restored over the weekend, along with other services like chat and trophy comparison. But “full restoration” has been hinted as late as May 31st.
Without further ado, here is your appreciation package PlayStation faithful:
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.
So, how does that sound? Kotaku has an interesting take on the package, saying that based on retail prices for the games and PS plus account costs, Sony thinks that gamers’ inconvenience is worth about $104. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the 100 free virtual items and the TBA selection of “on us” rentals.
To those of you who thought Sony needed to do something like this – is it enough?