Earlier this month, Sony announced that it was finally putting into the works that Playstation members would be able to change their PSN Username. This is a good thing, as many usernames were made back in the early years of PS3 and are most likely regrettable, or are tied to something that you no longer want it to be tied to. Name changes are also a very basic feature that most games and websites have, and so should be quick and easy. At first, everything seemed to be going okay except for one issue:
Not all games and applications on the PS3, PS4, and PS Vita would accept the changes.
So, a pretty big issue. But this just means that it would show the old PSN ID, instead of the new one. That would be fine for most people, but Twitter user ‘9Volt’ found more fine print behind the PSN name change and is asking the question on everyone’s mind:
does anyone actually hate their PSN ID enough to do this? pic.twitter.com/bDTymXUP9S
— 9 V O L T (@9_volt_) October 23, 2018
That’s a lot more issues than just having some games show the old username. It has become clear to many people in the responses of 9Volt’s tweet, that the risk may be greater than just the simple change. A couple people bring up some of the issues with the old gamer tag, and that it really shouldn’t cause this much of an issue to change a username.
Which of course makes these wonky af results of changing it all the worse :/
Like I think that’s the most important reason for being able to change your name on a service and if you can’t do it without it being a mess…— Batsy 🦇 (@Betsy7Cat) October 23, 2018
Some others have gone right into making fun of the situation and of Sony with this clearly risk username change:
“Sony releases new option for players called ‘we erase your PSN ID and you make a new one'”
— Drkarate (@dr_karate) October 23, 2018
Currently this is just the beta for the name change, and those who are a part of it can change their username once, and revert it back for free. Once it goes live in 2019, however, everyone will be able to change their username once for free. Any time after that, the change will cost $9.99 USD for regular users, and $4.99 USD for Playstation Plus Members.
But it does raise the question: Is it worth it?