PlayStation Stars brings back the PS1 Tech Demo Dinosaur as a digital collectible

Referring to the famous T-Rex tech demo for the original PlayStation.

A new loyalty program, PlayStation Stars, launched in Asia this week and will soon roll out to Europe and the US, and players in Asian countries like Japan have hinted at how it works.

PlayStation Stars is a free to join service that rewards users for completing various campaigns and activities. A new campaign has been launched in Asia since October, where the service is already active, and the prize for this award goes back to the classic PlayStation story (via PlayStation Fanatic).

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This October PlayStation Stars campaign is simple, users just need to play a PS4 or PS5 game. To do so, PlayStation Stars is awarding a digital collectible, ‘PlayStation Tech Demo Tyrannosaurus Rex’.

Older PlayStation owners will remember that it debuted with a tech display that allowed players to view a mobile, fully three-dimensional T-Rex on their console. For the time being, having such flawless 3D graphics and the ability to move the camera around on a polygonal model was considered incredible. Now PlayStation Stars is celebrating that history in the form of this digital collectible.

That’s not all. The tiny digital figure also seems to be referencing the Sly Cooper series, as the tiny T. Rex’s hands hold a cane that spits out the image of a star with a furry platform. So you are getting two calls for the price of one. It’s a hilarious statement for the audience, but we’ll leave that unsaid so as not to spoil the surprise.

Sony has previously mentioned the popular technology display. For PS5, Astro’s Playroom, T. Rex will also appear in a pack-in game among other icons from PlayStation history. The pack-in game is a wonderful tribute to the history of PlayStation, and now PlayStation Stars looks to be in the same vein. However, while it remains to be seen how interesting the loyalty program will be, it has been criticized for its approach to customer service in particular.

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