Preview program to kick off soon, with full rollout for all PS4 users planned for early 2019
We’re happy to announce that we will soon begin testing the long-awaited feature that will allow users to change their PlayStation Network Online ID from their PlayStation 4 system. The PSN Online ID Change feature beta will be a part of the PlayStation Preview Program, and will become available to select users that have pre-registered as testers for previous PlayStation 4 system software betas.
During the preview, you will be able to change your online ID as many times as you want. The first change is free, and changes after that will cost €9.99/£7.99. For PlayStation Plus members, it will cost €4.99/£3.99 after the first change. Changes to online ID can be made through the Settings menu or the Profile page of your PS4.
When you change your online ID, you will have the option to display your previous ID with your new ID, so your friends can recognize you. Once you decide to display your old ID or not, you won’t be able to adjust this after completing the online ID change process.
This feature is compatible with PS4 games originally published after 1st April 2018, and a large majority of the most played PS4 games that were released before this date. However, please note 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 for any reason you experience issues after changing your ID, you can revert back to your original ID for free at any time (you will only be able to revert once during the preview program). Reverting back to an old ID will resolve most issues caused by the ID change. In addition, when this feature officially launches, a list of compatible games published before April 1, 2018, will be provided on PlayStation.com for reference before you make a change.
The preview program for this feature is planned to conclude at the end of November 2018. The full roll-out of the feature to all PS4 owners is planned for early 2019, so stay tuned for updates down the road!
Nice finally. If we could also later change our other PSN details like country of residence, dob etc that would be perfect as things change but stuck using that countries PSN store eg
Your dob changed? How’d that happen?
Meant country and that could change not dob, but also allowing changing dob would be nice for those who mistakenly chose (lol) a wrong dob for their accounts when first signing up could happen through rushing sometimes
And by “mistakenly chose” you mean “bypassing the age restriction” of course.
Yeaaa… tnx brexit
The reason I had to change my account when the PS4 came out was because I hated the store I had, therefore I changed my username and now I’m used to it so I don’t like changing to my old nickname anymore
Loool time ago tings
I could really use that country of residence change because I don’t live in Saudi Arabia anymore :V I moved back in 2010 LOL (Can’t even use PayPal because it’s the same country of residence I lived in and PSN won’t accept it for the same reason they won’t accept my credit card. For someone that wants to take my money, they sure don’t want me to throw it at them!)
guys the dob can be changed for a long time now, you just have to call the support line and tell them that when you registered you entered an incorrect date and they will change it for you, happened with me and they fixed it without any questions at all
They should also allow us to use spaces in our IDs as well, just like XBOX.
Change country would be awesome. I remember when I create my Psn account for the first time I did it whit a country (not mine of course) that the only way to add money to the wallet is whit a psn card that only can be bought in stores of that country, credit card or PayPal from that country, there’s not online psn cards that I can buy in websites like the ones from united states or any country in Europe
I heard many people say they changed their DOB via support… already tried that twice and both times I was told that it is not possible… should I retry until I find this special someone who can? ? (side note: Speaking of the German support, should I try contacting support from e.g. the UK?)
This doesn’t sound useful at all. I mean, great for people new to PlayStation (who probably considered their name well because they knew you can’t change it) but if it’s going to cause problems for me as a user of all three systems it’s just not worth the hassle.
I get why you’re doing it but it seems pointless to execute it in this manner. My name is over a decade old and is terrible but I’m keeping it if this is the alternative.
If this is the method chosen that means there was no other way. Like I said, this means when they first setup PSN they tied accounts to the display username. Not a separate, unique id. It’s pretty embarrassing, really. What the hell was Sony engineers in Japan thinking?
Yeah i figured it just seems pointless to do it all. Even with the PS5. We’ve all accepted the mess up from back in the day and an ID isn’t the difference between a console sold and not.
I would love to read all the disclaimers on the screen before you do this and think paying for it at all is a bit cheeky.
So in theory You could change your name, load up PSNow on a PS4 and encounter issues? Seriously not useful…
It’s an optional feature many people wanted this since forever it’s not useless at all just because it is to you, you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to of course. Reason it took so long was a bunch of techical hurdles like this which I’m sure they worked on to minimise any issues this the best they could do
this might not be usefull for you but it is for a lot of people. people who don’t like their name anymore just like me and don’t get mad that you would get anny problemes because if you’re not gonna change your name you won’t haven any problemes and you don’t seem to want to change your name
Like I said newer players will like it. It is a feature that’s been called for for a long time but I don’t think it’s a solution. If you can interchange the names whenever you want so that playing on other systems is simply a couple of clicks then fine. However at the moment it doesn’t seem like that is even clear as you can only do that once for now.
Obviously when I say useless I’m referring to how I feel. If you think this is great then great!
It’s the most requested feature for years. Check the Share Blog.
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If you are not prepared for potential issues during the Beta phase then simply don’t enter into it. Let other people discover and report issues for Sony to investigate and fix.
The entire point of a preview program is to discover potential issues. If a game does not perform as expected then Sony will inform the developer and ask them to update their code.
Dunno why you’re whining when it’s OPTIONAL. You don’t wanna do it, then DON’T. Maybe that’s such a very hard thing to do for you though seeing as you took the time to complain here that it’s useless to you WHO WON’T EVER NEED IT, from the sound of your comment. Just saying.
I want it but it just doesn’t seem smart for me to use it as I have a lot of Sony systems. People are allowed opinions. I’ve repeatedly said it’s great for people that think it’s great. I personally don’t see the point and it’s okay to say that. Glad you’re a fan of it.
Yeah I just read the warnings.
Could lose access to PAID OFFLINE CONTENT.
Game may not work at all.
This is a stupid idea.
Sweet Jesus, you really did tie accounts to the PSN username instead of a separate, unique id. You crazy people. Was Kuturagi eating space cakes when he greenlit that move?
Well, better to rip the bandaid off now instead of after the PS5.
I don’t see why they won’t put in the leg work to revamp their ID system and migrate all accounts over bit by bit. Many online services have done this in the past, but then again, Sony’s software side have always been pretty useless. I mean, it’d require updating firmware for the PS3 and Vita and ensuring ‘legacy’ support for games that are linked to old IDs, but we all know Sony don’t want to bother with all that! Hell, they can charge us to do it this way and it makes less work for them… Perhaps it’s a cultural thing or maybe Sony’s software engineers are just that bad and they aren’t willing to hire new ones that know what they’re doing. Or perhaps it is all just about the money, as with backwards compatibility and how much they have messed that up!
That was already clear by how long it took. I personally don’t need it, but I hope it works well for the people who are asking for it. Hopefully they can also find a way to fix their db because the way they set it up is generaly a bad idea to begin with.
That said, PSN started 10 years ago, it was still not a good idea back then, but I am sure they were not the only one who did stuff like this back then. It’s usually a mess to fix, but with as many accounts as PSN has, it must be hell.
Let’s hope all goes well.
at Ben-Rogue:
The reason they charge for this is because otherwise people will change their name each week and people will abuse the feature. It’s a way for them to keep people from doing that. It costs money at Microsoft as well (for the same reason, the first change is free as well).
Fixing this problem isn’t as easy as you make it out to be on a live system with millions of users. It was a bad design decission, but it was a decission made years ago. It’s not something you can easily overhaul after the fact without stopping all access to PSN for a week or something along those lines.
I guess a part of why they charge is so that people don’t just change names on a whim.
It’s how the system identifies you, how people look you up and how people remember you.
Yes, there can be very real reasons behind why someone would want to change a username. Maybe they no longer want their real name associated with their gaming ID, or they now do want to do so. Or they want to reflect a different legal name or gender. Or maybe they just regret being stuck with whatever their 15-year-old self chose now that they’re in their 20s.
Heck, in a way that is part of the problem. People are regretting decisions they made 10 years ago that seemed to make sense at the time but, in some cases, really look silly on reflections. But Sony are stuck in the same position. Any decision, especially regarding account names or technical implementations must be made carefully because there is no guarantee you can change it down the line.
But then you always get those who just want to change their name…
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”eating space cakes”
lmao, nice one.
Believe me – it’s all about the money ? no question about it!
I’ve only had a PS4 since Xmas 2017, when I finally got home all I wanted to do was just PLAY the stupid thing! Instead I spent the better part of an hour trying to get a PSN that hadn’t somehow already been taken, my name is very unique, yet somehow all the combinations I tried just wouldn’t work, I tried nicknames and all kinds, in the end I just got so fed up with it that I wrote the equivalent of PS ID’s SUCK! (not my actual PSN but close enough and that IS the basic meaning behind it) so I’ve been stuck with that terrible choice for almost a year now, but the way they’re proposing this? I think ? I’m better off just sticking with it and telling my crazy ass story about how it came to be like that ?
So what happens if i change my name and my fave old game doesn’t like it? Does the game refuse to load or accept that I bought it? Is reverting back to the old name permanent or just useful for working with the incompatible game?
The way it reads, it looks like we will have two usernames side by side. One being the username you have now and the other being the new username. Your original username will now become the separate unique id for your account.
If you encounter any issues with unsupported games you can revert back to your original username.
What isn’t clear is if you can hop back to your new username when you’re finished with the unsupported game. In the beta we can only do this once.
We better be able to do this all the time in the full rollout.
It will *probably* just show your old name. I doubt it will be game-breaking. Just mildly confusing.
Thanks a bunch for more bugs….
I had a silly PSN ID on my PS3. When I bought my PS4 in 2014 I changed my PSN ID from what it previously was. I wish I could bring over all my trophies from my previous PS3 ID to my current PSN ID.
Amazing news! However, can i suggest that you consider deleting users that are level one with no trophies? Most of these accounts if not all are to send spam messages to other users and add nothing to the playerbase. This would also free up usernames for people who actually want to use them.
Yeah I’m surprised they haven’t done anything about this yet, I reported them before but then Sony gave me a warning and says I will be banned if I do ‘false reporting’ again..
Users that have not logged in for a two year period can be deleted, as stated in the user agreement for SEN Accounts.
I have accounts that are level 0 on trophies that I no longer have access because it won’t let me sign into them but I want them deleted has this is my main account and P.S I love my psn name I won’t be changing
It does say when you make a account you will not be able to change psn so why people make stupid ones they don’t like
@rayna-monique Because many of us made our accounts about 10 years ago – back when we were still kids.
Look at my name, for example: My way younger self apparently thought it’d be a clever self-referencing name. But my older self now understands that it just makes me come off as a pretentious jerk. It also just seems like a very provoking name whenever I score a goal in Rocket League or otherwise do well in any online multiplayer game.
But I’ve got so many games tied to my account now, and I’ve got 8000+ trophies on this account as well. So I was never going to just abandon this account altogether. But the name is quite a problem, so I’d very much like to change it.
@karmakaluas Alright, what does that mean, though? For NA, I could just message Sony and say “hey this dude’s inactive delete him”? That sounds really stupid.
This sounds like a good idea, although I’d add no purchases to that as well. Lots of folks have additional accounts that they use to buy from foreign PSN stores.
@doyoulikemyid I was like 10 when I created mine and no regrets
I find it funny actually lmao
@:Qualitygamer you don’t really have to do anything, inactive users are deleted by the moderators. You can just report bots and spammers to make moderators’ work more efficient and less time consuming. That is our role in the community.
@karmakaluas so if I stop using this account for a long time it’ll be deleted? I have bought a lot of games and I wouldn’t like to lose all my trophies either.
@jhongil15, i don’t make the rules mate and we don’t know the half of it. User agreement states that if you haven’t logged in more than once every 24 months, you agree that Sony can delete your pofile. Doesn’t mean that your profile will be deleted when you reach 24 months as inactive, what it does though is that it creates a legal framework in which Sony can delete bots and spammers.
Although if you indeed like your games and your trophies and your profile in general you wouldn’t be inactive for 24, or maybe more, months now, would you ?
Exactly
It says in the Preview Program, the first name change will be free…..Will the first name change be free when it fully rolls out too?
in the preview program you can change your name for free as many times as you want. the final release will allow you to do it once for free
What an absolute mess!
No intention of changing my ID, curious that my ID is Izorpo on my account but as I type this on the blog it shows izorpo
Posted shows proper, is it a blog bug or glitch?
Ok can someone clear this up I made the name that I want into another account so it will be forever tied to it and won’t be able to put it on main?
Yes it’s now tied to your new account, forever I’m not sure, but whilst you have that name you can’t rename your old account.
Not guaranteed to work on PS3 and VITA? How could Sony mess up a simple thing as this too?
When you change nick on Nintendo and Xbox, it shows new nick in 100% of games.
Anyway. Charging money for changing nick another time makes sense to prevent mis-use.
I’ve always expected not to be perfect with old-gen content. Something like PS3 games won’t recognize your old ID, i.e. it’ll pretend the savegames belong to someone else, aka your old self.
So we get a half-arsed name change? So we could actually end up not having access to half of our digital libary when this rolls out to everybody? It really shouldn’t be THAT difficult to transfer your purchase ID over to another ID. I mostly own physical on PS4 thankfully, but what about PS3 and Vita games?
I don’t think you’ll not be able to access those old games, they’ll just display your old ID.
Everybody calm down
i have a big questionif
my old id is ( koko1 ) and i changed to ( the-king1)
will koko1 be available ?
i mean can anyone pick koko1 after i changed my id ??
Your old PSN ID name is not deleted… As stated roll back is provided… Your OLD PSN ID name still belongs to you…
And can still be displayed.
You will have 3 IDs tide to PSN account if you change
Custom Profile name field That can be set to any thing as well as custom profile pic…
OLD PSN ID field that you started with…
Secondary New PSN ID field…
I think the ID koko1 is pretty cool.
finally and now please let us play with xbox players
YES PLEASE SONY !
No thank you, PSN only buy a Xbox if you wish to play with Xbox users. There’s a reason they are made by different companies.
Look at my name and imagine how happy I am that I’ll be able to change it soon. Made it when I was 9. Regretted it ever since
Worried about how this will affect my data, however. Also concerned about running into really awful errors that’ll force me to revert back to my old name.
Better than mine
Who cares if it doesn’t change your name in old individual games as long as it changes the name on your overall profile. The question is, will this mess anything up such as trophies on your account?
If it’s just a case where your old psn id shows up when playing online in an older game but everywhere else and all games going forward are changed to the new one then I don’t see the problem… As long as my profile which has all my games played, trophies, friends, etc doesn’t get F’d up then we good.
Let’s see what comes out at the end, right now it sounds a bit risky and problematic.
Good, but I don’t understand the compatibily part… It isn’t a full username change in that case… Too bad.
I know this is a much requested feature but I never had any need for it. Was always with Playstation and I was sure the account/name you made on PS3 would be used for further consoles and generations, so I made absolutely sure to go with a nickname I could bear for the remainder of my days on Playstation. Now I had the luck of being a European launch player and probably had some more choice than latecomers (although I figure some dude in Japan already snagged “Foxdie” :p) but I made sure of a few aspects I really wanted in place : No numbers in my name, starting off with a capital letter, and if at all possible, a name that is easily pronouncable by other players. Works on all three and I’m happy with my name :) (I actually even get complimented on it sometimes, saying they’d love to have my nickname :p) And it’s in reference to a great Hip-Hop label ^^
Well, it’s great and everything, but… where’s the fix for the PlayStation Store download queue with PS3/Vita games? It’s been 6 months.
They will never fix that
Then they should stop lying through the official channels about “being investigated” or pretending it was fixed months ago.
i second this, that glitch is unbelievably annoying.
Microsoft wins. Many years early and support for all games…..
The nickname that i want is already owned by someone that is not logging since 2009, you scout do something about that, because there are a lot of unused accounts
Microsoft may of won, but their software people. And that showed with the xbox 360, but what company is currently topping the sales Microsoft or Sony.
nice
Really!! It’s nice
UIO
Well, there’s no denying that this is a bad solution, but it’s better to eat the pain now rather than to continue this bizarre disorder into another generation
I hope we will be able to swap ids between accounts, I made an account with the psn name I wanted so noone could steal it
Merging accounts would be nice, got some digital games and old trophies stuck on the old psn
Would be great if I could remove my ex’s kids from the family management!!! Even Sony support said it’s not possible after months of investigation. Can only do it once the kids age is over 18… yeah that is 10 years off!
I am sticking with my PSN ID that i created when i joined PlayStation for the first time. But i see why so many pepole want to change it maybe when they created it during PS3 days and now when they are on PS it sounds so silly or you are ashamed of it because that gamer tag is old 10 or 11 years old and in that time a lot of us have changed so no more burn_the toilet or other silly gamer tags
Genuinely couldn’t care less about this lol
Will old accounts with zero activity for several, several years have their usernames revoked, so that if they ever log-in with their e-mail again, they are forced to choose a new name? Although I’m somewhat content with my username, I’ve wanted to change it to another PSN ID, but the desired ID is in use by someone who last got a trophy literally 9 years ago. So, zero activity.
Great. Another feature nobody asked for and a real feature that everybody asked for such as “trophy purchasing” is still not available…. Said nobody ever lol. I always wanted to change my name but nah I won’t.
I’ve seen people talk about name changing a lot. Never heard about… trophy purchasing…?
Have you been living under a rock? People have been asking for this feature for a very long time. Trophy purchasing? wt freak?
Trophy purchasing exists but it’s only for idiot hackers, not for honest players.
finally my id ugly i do not want him anymore
But when i can i delete trophy-profiles with trophies on them?
Never.
Finally I can change my stupid name
Liked it better when life choises actually had consekvenses
Waited for this for so long
❤️ FTW! ❤️
Thanks for this! I can’t wait. You rock, PlayStation.
But but but……it was impossible. The system is not built to handle an PSN is change blah blah blah.
You have feed us BS for the past 10 years.
This is the most asked feature but you have ignored this question from the community for the past decade.
And they caved because of the large demand, but it’s for the same reasons that they said it was impossible that it now comes with all those caveats, the compatibility issues and such.
Such a shame. I’ll miss seeing names like “Xx_SNIPERKILLA_xX” in all those online lobbies.
This is huge news for PS users. Discount for PS+ members is cool – your move, Microsoft.
They already can change user IDs
Nice
Been very much looking forward to this because look at the state of my PSN name hahaha. The whole working with older games thing is that just relating to games you’ve already started and are acknowledged on the game’s leaderboards already or would this mess up if I went on my PS3 for multiplayer for a game I’ve never played before just because the change has existed on my account?
Also please make sure this doesn’t affect trophies, I have 123 platinum trophies and a bunch of 100%s, more than half of them are from games that no longer have servers running so there’s not a chance in hell they’re getting done again. I also have over 1000 games tied to my account, so long as all of that stuff is still there I am happy. I can finally not be ViolatedMinds anymore because no one can read it and if they do they abbreviate it to something garbage.
We can change the name of fortnite with this
Very cool! Happy that this is finally a thing. Sticking with mine though
Forget that what about Ps3 backward compatible with the ps4 glad I still own a Ps3 along with a ps4