After years of PlayStation owners being unable to change their PSN names, Sony has officially announced that they will soon be testing the PSN Online ID Change feature beta to allow users around the world to finally change their IDs.
Revealed on the PlayStation Blog, the PSN Online ID Change feature beta will initially be a part of their PlayStation Preview Program and “will become available to select users that have pre-registered as testers for previous PS4 system software betas.”
If accepted, users will be able to change their online ID as many times as they’d like, with the first change being completely free. Any changes after that will cost $9.99 USD/CAD, or $4.99 USD/CAD for PlayStation Plus members.
When an online ID is changed, the option to display the previous ID alongside the new one will be available to help your friends recognize you. Once decided, you won’t be able to switch between showing/not showing your old ID.
These PSN ID changes are “compatible with PS4 games originally published after April 1, 2018, and a large majority of the most-played PS4 games that were released before this date.”
It’s important to note that “not all games and applications for PS4, PS3, and PS Vita systems are guaranteed to support the online ID change, and users may occasionally encounter issues or errors in certain games.”
If you were to run into multiple issues and wish to undo the change, you will be able to revert the change and go back to your original name. During the beta, this change can only occur once.
The beta for PS name changes is “scheduled to conclude at the end of November 2018” and all PS4 owners will be able to change their names, if all goes well, in early 2019.
Earlier this week, it was reported that multiple anonymous developers of multiplayer games had been preparing for this change.
Additionally, Shawn Layden, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, hinted last year that PlayStation players would hopefully be able to change their names by PSX 2018, and even though there will be no PSX this year, it appears that promise has come true.
