Sony has warned against the potential loss of progress, trophies and even paid-content if you change your username with the new beta firmware update.
There is a list of potential issues that a user can encounter if they change their PSN username. Just having a look at it makes it clear that there is a huge risk involved, especially if your PSN username was made during the PS3 or PS Vita days. Here is what is listed as a major risk according to Sony.
Not all games and applications for PS4™, PS3™, PS Vita, and other PlayStation® systems support the Online ID change feature. If you change your Online ID:
• You may lose access to content (including paid-for content) that you have acquired for your games, including content like add-ons and virtual currency.
• You may lose your progress within games, including game saved data, leaderboard data and progress toward trophies.
• Parts of your games and applications might not function properly, both online and offline.
• Your previous Online ID(s) may remain visible to you and other players in some places.
Sounds like a disaster that is waiting to happen if you don’t look at the issues here. There is always the chance that the transition works out for you, but personally speaking, I wouldn’t bother with a name change just to lose all my progress from the PS3 and PS Vita days.
As for the details regarding the name change, here is what is currently being charged for it while the first username change is completely free of cost.
The changes during the preview will adhere to the following structure:
• First change is free for all users.
• Second change will be charged at €9.99 / £7.99 (PlayStation®Plus subscribers receive a 50% discount).
• If your previous Online ID violates any of the current Terms of Service, you will not be able to revert back to your previous Online ID.
• You can revert to your previous Online ID once per account during the preview period.
• Sub-Accounts cannot utilise the Change Online ID feature.
• After you change your Online ID, it may take a few hours for some services and applications to reflect the new ID.
However, it is possible to revert back to the previous username during this preview period, but the alarming part is that as per Sony, this might not fix any of the issues that you have encountered after username change.
