Recently, NeoGAF member, kirbasin dug up some interesting details about a PS4 SDK update that could possibly hint at the arrival of PSN ID changes coming in the future. When he was was reading the notes for Unreal Engine 4.14 the NeoGAF user noticed the following:
Refactored the PlayStation 4 Online Subsystem engine plugin to support PlayStation 4 SDK version 4.008.061.
Deprecated the use of “Sce Np Online Id,” replacing it with “Sce Np Account Id,” as per Sony’s recommendation. Online users are now exclusively identified by their “Sce Np Account Id.”
Simplified the handling of unique net IDs across the PS4 online subsystem.
Switched from “Np Toolkit” to “Np Toolkit2,” to support the new APIs which work with “Sce Np Account Id.”
Added asynchronous name resolution to convert between “Sce Np Online Id” and “Sce Np Account Id,” using Sony’s ID mapper web interface.
For PlayStation 4 online users, the “To String” and “Get Bytes” functions in “Unique Net Id” now return the user’s “Sce Np Account Id.”
Previously these functions returned the user’s “Sce Np Online Id.” Any custom online code or services backend will need to handle identifying users by their “Sce Np Account Id,” as according to Sony’s recommendations.
If required, the “Sce Np Online Id” for local users and friends can be obtained via the “Get Display Name” interface in “Online User.”
This our be terrific news for PlayStation users that would love to have their old and outdated name changed. It is a bit surprising that Sony never added this feature in back in the PS3 days as Xbox always had this option, but you have to pay in order to change your gamertag. I expect the same whenever Sony brings it to PlayStation.