I almost paid $290 to change my Xbox gamertag

MMGN's Tano Prestia writes: Last night I almost sliced through my weekly budget just to change a little bit of text.

If you follow me on Xbox Live, you know my gamertag is halfway between dudebro douchebag and 13-year-old Call of Duty trashtalker.

[Wizard_King]

Charging to chamge names is just messed up MS this shit needs to stop.

Since the first days of Steam it has been as simple as Steam>settings>account&g t;change name, and that's all it ever should be. MS should be enforceable banned from the gaming industry, such cancer.

[xwilldemise]

One thing I have to give to Microsoft is that at LEAST they have the option to change your gamer tag name unlike Playstation & I'm a playstation fan. I would gladly pay $10 to change my PSN name!

[Rimeskeem]

Many people dont know this but you can request to change your name to sony and in certain circumstances they will allow you

[PX54]

I don't know why this is such an issue for MS and Sony. I can see that MS clearly want yet another additional extra to charge you for, and I can possibly understand the reasons behind keeping your details the same to make it easier to report a user or whatever. But surely it's as simple as giving the user an 'account name' which cannot be changed and a 'screen name' which can be changed at will for those who wish to do so. That way any alerts or reporting can still go through the account name and MS or Sony will know who it belongs to even if their screen name has changed in the meantime.

[RosweeSon]

It would be nice to change my PSN name as I signed up over 10 years ago I just think it stinks that they charge for this. You wouldn't get charged to update your email address or bank details with any other website or service so why they think they can or should charge all that money to just change the name on your profile is madness, a £1-2 sure best part of £10! No thanks.

[Femto]

steam name changing is free and unlimited, atleast MS gives you an option tho, even shitty services like uplay have a name changer, origin too. Sony make it happen!

[Mikefizzled]

Difference is Steams core username never changes. Only what people see you as changes. Xbox doesn't have that distinction.

[Codewow]

Hey, you don't have to change your name if you don't want to. Just get a new account like on PSN. I say if someone is willing to part ways with their $10+ to change their names, let them. It's an ingenious way of making profit. Something I am surprised Sony hasn't started doing yet.

[sinspirit]

Games and content are tied to accounts, as well as trophies and friends list. It's not the same.

[Kiwi66]

OMG it was clearly a glitch but to you its ol' evil MS up to no good again

[TheCommentator]

If they didn't charge for it people would change gamertags as often as underwear and blow through all the good ones.

[Rik_Mayall]

You can't change your Steam account name, that's just changing the Username persona.

Completely different.

[DLConspiracy]

Bit overdramatic don't you think?

[Kivespussi]

I change my Steam name almost daily. Always fun to come up with new and interesting names. A shame that XBL charges for that and PSN lacks the feature entirely.

And that $290 price tag is just a mess up on MS's part. You'd easily get a refund if you would end up accidentally pressing accept

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Daily? Why?

[voodoochild346]

Lol. He said in the very comment you replied to that it's fun to come up with new names and yet you still asked why he does it. Reading comprehension is so bad online it's not even funny.

[Kivespussi]

I don't know. Because I can I suppose and while I have my own usernames I'm happy with on both XBL and PSN, I just don't want to settle for one in Steam for some reason. And like I said, I think it's a fun thing to come up with new stuff. Also I'm such a dirty hipster that I think it's cool because I'm the only one doing it, haha.

It has also became a fun little inside joke between friends, don't want to stop the little "tradition". I have been doing it for a couple months and to be honest while I am running out of ideas, I think it has been a nice little brain exercise to come up with new things. Will keep doing it as far as possible.

[TheXgamerLive]

Actually no you don't change it daily. As already stated, the core user name is the same as you cannot change that ever on steam, it's only what your friends see that changes. The core name is always the first name you logged in.
Xbox Live actually lets you change the ENTIRE thing, gamertag and all. AND, nobody almost or ever pays $290 dollars to change their Xbox gamertag.

[LexHazard79]

Unless your a trouble maker online i dont see the reason for always changing your gamertag. That being said aleast MS gives you the option. Oh and its free for first time.

[quenomamen]

Probably why they are called M$

[DoggyBiscuit]

I remember when I had 360 M$ charge me 8 bucks to change my gamertag but now they charging 290 that just way too much

[desolationstorm]

Yeah mine is a 10+ year old name that is slightly offensive. Not a big huge deal but sometimes leads to an awkward moment.