PlayStation users can grab free store credit right now

PlayStation owners can get their hands on some shiny, lovely free store credit. And the best part is all you need to do to get it is play the games you were going to anyway. It's like having a job, if you could pay the rent with copies of A Short Hike.

There are many features that PlayStation 5 owners would like to see Sony bring to the console. We all want to see custom themes make a return, for one thing. If you've been keeping up, you'll know the latest system update, which is currently in beta, makes a huge number changes.

But of all the new features PlayStation has rolled out over the last year or so, PlayStation Stars is perhaps the most underrated of them all. Launched last year, PlayStation Stars is basically a loyalty program in which players can earn a range of rewards by completing “campaigns and activities”.

These activities run the gamut from earning trophies and winning tournaments to simply checking in to play a game. The rewards are, for the most part, a little dull. You can get a bunch of digital trophies that don't actually do anything. But if you're a normal person who doesn't care about weightless virtual tat, you can save your points and spend them to get money off on the PlayStation Store.

You don't get huge amounts off this way, but canny gamers have been able to save up enough to buy whole-ass games without spending any money at all. And really, isn't that the dream?

The good news is Stars will be even easier to use in the coming months, too. One of the upcoming changes that Sony didn't mention in its last update is the coming integration of the PlayStation Stars program to the PlayStation 5 system software. Given the mobile app is a bit rubbish, this should get more people using Stars. Hopefully that doesn't mean Sony makes the rewards a bit more rubbish, but we'll have to wait and see.