The PlayStation Network name, or its abbreviation PSN, is pretty inseparable from essentially the videogame platform’s entire online infrastructure. But it looks like the Sony subsidiary is looking to drop its iconic branding. And the plan is seemingly to do so by September of this year.
Insider Gaming cites an email sent to developers which notes that this will be a purely visual change. Beyond dropping the the PlayStation Network and PSN labels, nothing else on the backend is changing. This includes friends, multiplayer and trophies. Also worth noting that the PlayStation Store and PS Plus are not affected.
The reason for the change in branding was supposedly to “properly capture the breadth of our evolving digital services”. Though it’s unclear what the company finds lacking in a name like PlayStation Network. The word Network is such a general, all-encompassing name, so it’s difficult to imagine what the new name would be. The email involved did not share what that would be either.
It would be a pretty abrupt rebranding too, but if we were to speculate, there could be a couple of reasons as to why. One possibility is to tie the service closer to the overall Sony branding. After all, the proper company name behind the PlayStation brand is Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE).
On the other hand, and this one is a bit more of a stretch, but SIE may be looking to distance itself from the whole getting Steam users to link their accounts episode. This was most prominent when it happened to Helldivers 2, but it also extended to, for instance, the multiplayer component of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut. Of course, we doubt we’ll ever know for sure what the real reason is.
At any rate, it will probably be closer to September before PlayStation makes a public announcement of this rebranding. It would likely also be then when we find out what we’re supposed to call the PlayStation Network moving forward.
(Source: Insider Gaming)
