You remember the PSN Store did those special discounts last year? Basically, the Store guys went to a load of developers and said “these are not the download prices you’re looking for,”
Amazingly, this Jedi mind trick seemed to work and us happy PSN Store customers ended up with some pretty impressive discounts. I remember it well, my credit card company sent me a thank you card.
Well, it seems like they’ve been working hard in the interim to get more special deals prepared for the store and this time, they’ve tied it all up into a full on promotion. Starting on August 24th, they’re launching a new yearly initiative called PLAY. Stick with us, this one has several layers of bonuses and discounts to keep track of.
Starting on August 24th, for four weeks, there will be a big PSN release. You will be able to pre-order each game for a short while before it becomes available to download and in doing so, you’ll get access to a new theme, free of charge. On top of that, customers who buy the titles during the PLAY promotion, which runs until September 20th, will not only get the game they paid for, they’ll also get another, entirely separate piece of DLC for that game.
So, if you pre-order (and they’re going to start taking orders for all four titles in this year’s promotion from August 10th) then you’ll get the game, the bonus DLC for buying during the PLAY promotional period plus a free theme for pre-ordering. On top of that, PlayStation Plus subscribers are going to receive a 20 percent discount on all purchases of PLAY titles made before September 20th, when the promotion expires.
Oh, and one final bit of good news. If you buy all four titles in the PLAY promotional period (10th August – 20th September) then you’ll qualify for a completely free copy of PayDay: The Heist when it is released later this Autumn. That game is also going to be available for pre-order between 20th and 29th of September, for those who don’t take advantage of the bonus PLAY deal.
Here are the titles involved and their respective launch dates:
- August 10th – Pre-orders start for all four games in the promotion.
- August 24th – Street Fighter III Third Strike Online Edition, €14.99. Bonus DLC is a character, Gill, who is unlocked from day one rather than having to beat the entire game to get at them. The pre-order bonus is a theme produced by Capcom. Pre-orders can be made up to August 18th.
- August 31st – The Baconing, €12.99. Bonus DLC is an additional co-op character called Roesha. Pre-orders can be made up until August 25th and will entitle you to a free static theme, exclusive to PLAY.
- September 7th – BloodRayne: Betrayal, €12.99. Bonus DLC is an exclusive dynamic theme and a virtual item for your PlayStation Home avatar. In addition to this, pre-orders will be taken up to September 1st and will entitle you to another static theme, exclusive to PLAY.
- September 14th – Renegade Ops, €12.99. Bonus DLC is a vehicle and character pack featuring two new vehicles and special weapons. Pre-orders are taken up to September 8th and entitle you to a static theme, exclusive to PLAY.
- September 20th – PLAY promotion closes. Get your games bought before this day to ensure you qualify for the free copy of PayDay: The Heist!
Kovacs
Only issue I see with this is:
SFIII
Renegade Ops
The Baconing
BloodRayne: The betrayal
Bonus: PayDay: The Heist
Vs
Bastion
From Dust
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
Fruit Ninja
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Bonus: Crimson Alliance
Now, everyone’s tastes are different, but I think you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the PLAY promotion is as strong as MS’s SoA. Of course, this is the first year and, like I said, opinion is subjective.
nemesisND1derboy
And to be fair, I would say Summer of Arcade is the strongest it has EVER been. I don’t know if it will always be as strong as it has been this year. The titles they have are fantastic. I’m sure PLAY will pick up momentum soon too.
KeRaSh
Bastion
From Dust
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
That’s all I need and it sure as hell beats whatever Sony can offer right now.
colmshan1990
It sure does.
Looking forward to playing From Dust, and also Bastion on PS3.
cc_star
The other ‘issue’ is games appearing as part of PLAY will appear on 360 at the same time anyway, whereas 360 owners get actual exclusive titles, sure 1 or 2 may be just a year, but 3 or 4 will be proper exclusives. Unless I missed something and theses PLAY titles are exclusives, in which case Go Sony!
The only thing PS owners are gaining is a pre-unlocked unlockable character, a PS Home avatar and some DLC.
It’s good that Sony are doing a promo, but it does highlight that the Live exclusives (at around the 85%+ rated part of the market) are a lot more numerous than PSN exclusives, which doesn’t have much more than Journey this year.
TSBonyman
Interesting offer, apart from those specific games.
GeneralJeeb
This has me all kinds of excited, as I was gonna get three of the four anyway, might as well pick up The Baconing and nab Payday for free! Gotta love me some Deathspank :)
Topgearsam
Renegade ops and maybe the baconing are the only ones I’m thinking of getting. I was going to buy payday as soon as it came out anyway.
D-Nichol
Dont know anything about these games other than Payday…which I do want. Gonna have to do sone research first :)
kingpowell
I agree with everyone else that the games don’t sound too hot but i don’t think anyone should judge a gane by it’s name alone.
For anyone thinkin of gettin payday from day1 this can only be a good thing pay an extra£5 or so an get 4 extra games with additional content.
The themes do nothing for me. i’ve never applied a game theme and there are plenty of free themes online games, girls , cars, footy allsorts
kingpowell
Ok done a bit more research and found that payday isn’t a full (blueray) game so u dont get 4 extra games for around a £5 prob more like £20ish. Still not too bad a deal but think it would be better if there was 6-8 games to choose from andu needed 4-5 pre-orders for a free 1, just to give a bit of choice.
colmshan1990
Bloodrayne and Renegade Ops look by far the best. Payday if you include it looks good too, but Street Fighter III? No thanks, and as for a Deathspank game? The other two didn’t even raise the slightest bit of interest from me, and I doubt this one would either.
Still, it’s good that Sony are willing to do stuff like this now.
Carl
I’ll freely admit i probably wouldn’t buy most of these at full price. But 20% discount with free DLC, free theme, and free PAYDAY at the end of it convinces me to buy. Nice work, marketing.
Also i have no problem throwing money behind this. If it’s successful they might throw more money at it next year and have better titles in the promo
TheChaosGamer
I do like…I do.
Topov81
Good idea, shame about the games. Shame there’s no Burnout Crash.
Topov81
Oh and whatever happened to Putty Squad ?…. was meant to be Xmas, I emailed the dev team who said March, and I’ve seen nothing since :(