Opinion: Why Is Sony Scrapping the PSN Name?

I was about to sleep last night when I saw a strange report circulating on social media: Sony is set to scrap the PSN branding.

While not confirmed by the company – this communication, it seems, was only intended to be shared with devs for now – it comes from a good source and seems legit to me.

So, the immediate question knocking around my brain as I plunged into the land of nod was a simple one: why?

When I woke up this morning, I wanted to check something on Push Square: when did we last use the PSN acronym in one of our headlines?

It was Christmas Day, when I wrote about the PSN servers holding steady over the holidays.

Before that? PSN stabilising after a global Amazon outage.

And the time before? PSN exhibiting issues in October.

In fact, what I found was pretty much any time we’ve referenced PSN over the past few years, it’s been in reference to server issues or outages.

This made me realise one thing: the PSN moniker hasn’t really been relevant for some time. We only ever talk about it when the service goes offline.

Heck, when was the last time you actually paid attention to PSN’s logo? And did you realise Sony actually changed it over a decade ago?

I think PSN as a concept made more sense when online gaming was in its infancy. On the PS3, for example, it wasn’t always assumed a title would have online functionality, so it made sense to promote it.

PSN was also used as a way to differentiate between “retail” and “digital” games, but those lines have now completely blurred. There’s no such thing as a “downloadable” release anymore, right? That’s everything.

I think what we used to consider PSN is just a Sony account these days. It’s possible the company will try to merge it with more of its services; I’m sure the wider Sony family wishes it had access to the full breadth of PlayStation’s userbase.

I know this is something the company tried to do before, when it briefly rebranded as PSN as Sony Entertainment Network. That name never really caught on, did it?

But I think PSN as a concept doesn’t really exist anymore, and that’s evidenced by all of our recent articles about it. Like I said, we only ever use the name when Sony’s servers are down – not ideal for the organisation, I’m sure.

I suppose eventually we’ll just start writing “PS5 Offline” or whatever. Or maybe the PSN moniker will stick with longtime fans, even if Sony no longer acknowledges it.

It’s weird because, on the surface, retiring the PSN name felt like big news to me. But when I really paused to think about it, I realised it hasn’t really been a thing for quite some time.

What do you think of Sony’s decision to scrap the PSN name? What difference do you think this will make moving forwards? Will you continue to use the moniker after it’s gone? Let us know below.