Sony details PS3 "Welcome Back" freebies, not yet available

Sony will compensate users who were affected by the massive PS3 online outage, but not just yet.

Making good on its earlier promise to offer a handful of free digital content to all Playstation Network users once the service was back up and running, Sony detailed yesterday what it will be giving away.

In North America, users will be able to download two of the following PS3 games:

– Dead Nation

– Infamous

– LittleBigPlanet

– Super Stardust HD

– Wipeout HD + Fury DLC

…As well as two of the following PSP games:

– LittleBigPlanet

– ModNation Racers

– Pursuit Force

– Killzone Liberation

That’s the biggest part of the deal. In addition, Sony is offering the following:

* 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.

However… despite all the celebration related to Sony’s recent restoration of service, none of this stuff is available yet. That’s because the Playstation Store has not yet been restored; only onling gaming access has.

Because of the depth of the hack and data intrusion, Sony is not yet comfortable enough to open the digital download store, which collects users’ credit card and billing information. The company has said nothing about when it expects to have this part of the PSN back up and running.

So, for now, PS3 owners can play all the games they want online and daydream about the free stuff that’s in store for them. Hopefully that dream will turn to reality soon enough.