Home Gaming Sony hints that PSN name changes could finally be coming

Sony hints that PSN name changes could finally be coming

2 min read
5

Layden

Over time people change, and their tastes change along with them. The things you liked, or the things that defined you when the PlayStation Network launched in March 2006 may no longer be the sort of thing that tickles you in the year of our loot box 2017.

It means that if you registered a name on the service bound to that zeitgeist – say something asinine like StArKiLlEr_360 – your online interactions on PSN may look both dated and silly. Users have been begging to change PSN names for what seems like forever, but Sony’s hand-waved or explained the possibility away. At PlayStation Experience this weekend, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America and Chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios Shawn Layden finally hinted that the feature could be coming in the relatively near future.

In a post-PSX interview, Layden hinted that “The elves at the North Pole have been working on it,” adding that the situation is “more complex than you think” from a technical perspective.

In 2014, Layden said that the company was preventing name changes to stop people from trolling others.

“We don’t want to make it so that you can go in, grief a bunch of people in Far Cry, change your avatar, change your username, go into CoD and grief everybody over there. We want to stop that,” he said.

“[We want to do name changing] in a way that’s transparent, but also don’t let people morph themselves, either,” he said. “And yeah, it’s terrible that you have to make decisions on a service sometimes by optimizing around the bad actor. I hate that we have to do that. So we’re trying to balance that between… the 99 percent of users going to have a good experience, how can we help make that happen without giving one more tool to the bad actor to go in and ruin the experience for others?”

Funnily, Microsoft already came up with a solution to that. When the company debuted Xbox Live name changes, it offered the first one free (allowing people to finally get rid of the stupid names they used when they were braindead teens), but subsequent name changes on the service required a fee. If people have to pay to troll, they’re a little less likely to do so.

Last Updated: December 11, 2017

5 Comments

  1. Gavin Mannion

    December 11, 2017 at 08:55

    Which idiot would use a name like StArKiLlEr_360

    Also, I am glad they are finally doing it even if it does mean we will have to stop making fun of Alessandro’s stupid PSN name

    Reply

  2. Matthew Figueira

    December 11, 2017 at 14:40

    RIP XxX_St4rK1ll3r_N0sc0p3_36O_XxX 🙁

    Reply

  3. tcanb

    December 12, 2017 at 13:22

    Nope. Not happening. Gullible idiots belirved it though. Smh.

    Reply

  4. Admiral Chief Silver Dragon

    December 12, 2017 at 13:43

    New name can be chosen in a loot box

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Former PlayStation boss thinks that the AAA game development model needs to start thinking smaller

In an age where every game is attempting to be the be-all and end-all of its genre, the id…