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https://blog.us.playstation.com/2018/10/10/psn-online-id-change-feature-entering-playstation-preview-program-soon/

During the preview program, 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 USD / CAD. For PlayStation Plus members, it will cost $4.99 USD/ CAD after the first change. Changes to online ID can be made through the Settings menu or via the Profile page of your PS4.

Mine has never been the most terrible one, but it is still a nickname that I haven't used in years, so I'm definitely going to change mine.

$4.99 is dangerous because it could entice me to change my name to stupid things periodically for laughs

I'm happy with my PSN name but glad this option exists finally.

Wouldn't want to change my psn name

It's great the option now exists

The bit about how older games on all platforms might totally break has me really worried about it. I hate my dumb PSN name but it's not worth not being able to play certain games to get rid of.

"What is Personal Data under the GDPR?
Name, such as full name, maiden name, mother‘s maiden name, or alias".
I'm surprised Sony are seemingly going to get away with charging for username changes, unless there's some kind of loophole where a username doesn't count as an alias, GDPR demands that people can have their personal data changed freely and that seems to include aliases.
Any idea if this charge is going to be in effect in Europe?

Goodgoodgood. Mine's not terrible or anything, but it's generic. I want some pizzazz. Something that turns virtual heads and makes players go "It's that guy! With the name!". Something that qualifies me for the "Best PSN Name Ever, So Here, Have All Of The Games For Free" award.

Something like... xXx42069an1m3b0yxXx.

And potentially lose access to the digitally purchased PS3 and Vita games I have.

My PSN will remain private.

Only took them what, 10 years?

I've never understood the need for this feature, but I'm also the guy that's been using the same internet alias on every single platform other than Instagram (and that wasn't a deliberate decision, I just happened to think of something else as I made the account) since I was in middle school because I like the idea of people in my life, real and virtual, being able to know it's me if they come across a comment of mine on a forum or a profile of mine on a social site. Probably weird to a lot of people but I've never really had privacy concerns, my life isn't interesting enough to keep a secret.

Happy for the people who really, really want this though, I suppose.

There are some embarrassing PSN names out there, so hopefully this allows them to be cleaned up. I might change mine if I can get something cool. We'll see.

I'm glad I'll finally be able to change my boring, simple name I made when I was a teenager to my more recent boring, simple online handle I use everywhere else.

@danielpacheco: lots of people made their username during adolescence and probably feel it's not appropriate / fitting.

I created a new PSN account about 5 years ago so that I could have the name that I wanted, so there doesn't seem to be any point in changing it now.

It would be cool if there was a nickname function like steam has, so I could keep track of everyone on my friends list without having to reveal real names.

Good, finally. I remember I made my terrible PSN name when I just didn't care and created the name just for the sake of getting through the process of creating a name to play the games. Now I can match it with my Xbox username.

Edit - Wait, we might have issues with some games due to the name change? What the hell... That's stupid.

"This feature is 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. 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."

This kind of clues us in as to why it's taken so long for Sony to implement name changing and reinforces something we've heard anytime Jeff has asked someone over there. If you know anything about how databases work and/or have worked with them, it's really easy to guess why this is a problem.

The short version is that when Sony first implemented the system both on the network side and on the console side they made a bunch of backward decisions about how to store account data and now they have to do some serious bending over backwards to make this feature work.

I'm going to wait with changing my PSN ID until we know more about how widespread and significant the issues can be. I don't want to pay for the opportunity to break older games that I might want to go back to. And it's not that much older games either.