Sony Clarifies PSP Go Pre-Order Bonuses

Kris Erickson • Aug 12, 2009 • Comments (0)

A recent trend among game publishers is to offer fans a special digital bonus in the form of an extra player costume or weapon if they pre-order an upcoming game. The reason is because retailers like to draw customers in with special offers, and because they can more accurately judge how many copies of a game they need to order beforehand. Many gamers are excited about these bonuses, particularly recently-announced ones like the special rally car in Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, or the unique car colors in Gran Turismo PSP. (Players who pre-order Gran Turismo also get their pick of an over-powered supercar to unlock from the beginning, giving them the edge in multiplayer).

However, all of this talk by Sony about pre-order bonuses got us thinking, what happens if you are planning to purchase the game as a digital download on the Playstation Store? Right now, there isn't a way to "pre-order" digital goods, and anyway that would be kind of silly.

In a response to fan questioning, Sony has decided to solve the problem by giving all digital download customers the pre-order bonus automoatically if they buy the game within the first 30 days that is goes on sale. Nice! We aren't sure if this applies only to Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, but the company will likely institute a similar policy for all downloadable games (or risk losing a large number of customers to retail UMD purchases).

A scheme like this would actually make the digital version more appealing, because then we wouldn't have to go down to the shop to wait in line and actually plunk down money for a pre-order. Do you hear that sound? It's the sound of a million Gamestop salespeople quivering in fear (and maybe some retail store owners, too).