Earlier today, Sony announced that they’re implementing a feature that allows users to change their PSN ID. If you regret the childish name, you made when you were young and naive, fear not. You can now change it for free. No longer do you have to put up with xXWeedMaster69Xx because you can eradicate it once and for all.

In an official blog post, Sony has gone into detail on how it works. Firstly, we need to make clear that the feature isn’t available to anyone just yet. It’ll be rolled out permanently in “early 2019” but if that’s too much of a wait for you, here’s what you need to do.

  • Head here, the official blog post on signing up for the next PS4 system software update beta.
  • Follow the links in the article to register your access. Note: the process isn’t permanently open, so it may not be possible right now to register.

This is the only way to gain access to the feature, as it enters the PlayStation Preview Program soon. If you’ve pre-registered as previous testers for the PS4 system software betas, you don’t need to do anything. The feature will become available to you when it goes live.

When does it go live for everyone?

For everyone else, hang in there. Sony has confirmed it’ll be going live for everyone in early 2019. When it does go live, you can change your PSN ID by going to the settings menu on your PS4, or via your profile page. From there, you can change it to anything you want – as long as it isn’t already taken, of course.

Sony has also confirmed that the feature is compatible with all PS4 games published after April 1, 2018, and a “large majority of the most-played PS4 games” that were released before then. Not every game will support it though so if you may run into some errors. If that’s the case, you need to revert the change to your PSN ID, and everything should be fixed. It’s also completely free to change your PSN ID for the first time – every subsequent time will cost $4.99 for PlayStation Plus users or $9.99 if you’re not with PS+. A full list of compatible games will be published on PlayStation.com so you can check before you change.