12 years later, Sony might allow users to change their PSN names

Rumor has it that Sony might finally make one of its biggest changes ever — allowing players to change their names on the PlayStation Network.

The rumor comes from Kotaku, who cite anonymous developers who’ve been told about the change in order to prepare for it. There’s no time frame yet on when it’ll happen, and until I hear it from Sony’s figurative lips, I won’t put money on it being true — I’ve gotten my hopes up before only to have them broken.

But if this is true… What in the name of Kratos is going on with Sony? Allowing crossplay, and now possibly the changing of PSN names? Who put what in its water? Come forward — we want to thank you.

Changing one’s PSN name has been one of those features long-requested, if only because the name you wanted to be known as while playing Call of Duty at age 14 isn’t necessarily the image you want to present when you pick up Black Ops 4 later this month. It happens — people change, and you don’t necessarily want to be saddled with the name you gave yourself years ago.

Considering the PlayStation Network has been around for over ten years without the option to edit names, it’ll be a massive shift if it does happen. But again, we’d need Sony to confirm it before we all start rushing to our PS4s.

That said, the rumor’s not completely without official precedent. At last year’s PlayStation Experience, Sony exec Shawn Layden implied the feature was coming, saying “I hope we’ll see events occur that you won’t have to ask me that question next PSX.” He also implied the change would be harder than a simple “edit” button. Since accounts are linked to names, the difficulty could be in ensuring users could change their names without losing any of the things tied to their accounts, such as digital purchases or trophies.