PlayStation’s PC / Steam initiative has yielded few successes yet plenty of controversies, with one of the primary issues being many of the games’ PSN requirements – locking out potential players from over 100 different countries in which the service is not active. While it seemed as though this issue had been resolved, the upcoming Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has now run into the exact same problem – currently being blocked in 132 countries.

Marvel Tokon is officially almost upon us, with the tag-team fighting game from PlayStation / Arc System Works set to launch on PlayStation 5 and PC next month in early August. Unfortunately, PC users are once again encountering issues, with SteamDB updates revealing that Marvel Tokon is currently blocked in 132 countries on PC – presumably due to PlayStation Network requirements.

As mentioned, this is far from the first PlayStation game to run into such issues, with Helldivers 2 being the most famous in this regard. In case you forgot, the highly popular co-op shooter did initially launch on Steam globally to great success.

Unfortunately, this was quickly followed by Sony’s PSN requirements, leading to the game no longer working in over 170 countries. After plenty of backlash, Sony reversed course – making this latest decision an odd one to say the least.

All that being said, Marvel Tokon still has roughly a month to go until its release, and so hopefully its current state is merely a matter of logistics and that come the 6th of August, the game is fully available and playable to all.

KitGuru says: What do you think of this latest move? Will it remain this way by launch, or is this just a matter of behind-the-scenes shenanigans? Let us know your thoughts down below.

PlayStation Network is a well known brand by this point, having been used by Sony pretty much since the inception of their online platform’s launch. With the service soon to reach its 20 year mark however, it appears as though Sony is planning a big rebranding of PSN.

In an internal email sent to developers (which was obtained by the publication Insider-Gaming), Sony revealed that they plan to retire the PlayStation Network branding come this September, writing:

“We'd like to inform you that Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has strategically decided to phase out the terms ‘PlayStation Network’ and ‘PSN’ across our platform in order to properly capture the breadth of our evolving digital services.”

According to the company, “The upcoming changes are purely visual and will not introduce any technical alterations to our offerings. To simplify and unify branding, the terms ‘PlayStation Network’ and ‘PSN’ will be phased out across all SIE assets by September 2026.”

As stated by PlayStation themselves, this change will be “purely visual” and as such don’t expect the service itself to be altered in any material way. Still, changing the name for what is now a staple of the video games industry is an interesting move.

As mentioned however, PSN is closing in on its 20th anniversary (initially launching in November of 2006) and so perhaps Sony simply thinks it’s time for a bit of a refresh. It will be interesting to see what the new name for PlayStation Network will wind up being.

KitGuru says: What do you think of the PSN branding? Is it due for a change? Does the name PSN give you positive, negative or neutral connotations? Let us know down below.