2006 was a crazy year - High School Musical had just premiered, Paris Hilton was the number one Hollywood 'It-Girl', and Facebook had just become accessible to the public. It was also the year that Sony launched PlayStation Network, its all-encompassing digital media service.
If you signed up when the service debuted 12 years ago, the likelihood is that you chose a username based on your interests and identity at the time - but chances are xXsPongeBobFanXx doesn’t exactly reflect your adult self today.
Until now it’s been impossible to change your PSN username, meaning many people are stuck with the embarrassing screen names they thought were totally cool as pre-teens. If you fall into this camp, you’ll be pleased to know that there are rumors circulating that Sony will finally give you the ability to update your username to something more current.
A report by Kotaku cites three anonymous sources at different game studios, who told them that they’ve been “fixing bugs, tweaking setting, and ensuring their games are compatible with Sony’s plans” to allow PSN users to change their usernames.
When can I change my username?
It seems that implementing this is far more complicated than you would think, with the anonymous developers suggesting that the issue lies in the way PSN IDs were originally implemented - this means that any planned changes could take a while to come to fruition.
Although Sony hasn’t commented on the rumors, CEO Shawn Layden did hint at the potential solution at the PlayStation Experience conference in December 2017, responding to a question about username changes by saying “you won’t have to ask me that question next PSX”.
Initially it was thought that Sony would enable the feature in 2018, but as the company has announced that there will be no PSX conference this year, its looking like the ability to change your PSN username may not arrive until 2019.
Despite the lack of timeframe, PlayStation fans are already taking to Twitter in their excitement at the proposed changes:
I have no desire to change my PSN username but I'm glad they're finally doing it for those who are stuck with xX_Sephiroth420_XxOctober 4, 2018
No because when i came up with my PSN username i didn't have a mindset of a 12 year old https://t.co/JFYL0AsOcgOctober 4, 2018
I have no desire to change my PSN username but I'm glad they're finally doing it for those who are stuck with xX_Sephiroth420_XxOctober 4, 2018
