Sony announces partnership with Discord
As soon as the rumors about Microsoft and Discord are off the table, another company grabs the deal. The partnership with Discord now goes to Sony. For you this means that you will be able to use the popular communication platform on your PlayStation console from the beginning of next year. In a related blog post, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan writes:"Here at PlayStation, we are constantly looking for new ways to enable gamers around the world to network, make new friends and communities and share fun moments and experiences. With that in mind, we're excited to announce our new partnership with Discord, the communications platform used by over 140 million people worldwide every month. "
Sony is currently working on connecting their PlayStation Network to Discord so that "friends, groups, and communities can hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together". To reinforce the partnership, Sony has already acquired a minority stake in Discord.
Recommended Editorial Content Here you will find external content from [PLATFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I consent to external content being displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. Jim Ryan also writes:
"Enabling gamers to create communities and enjoy gaming experiences together is at the heart of everything we do, which is why we are delighted to take this journey with one of the world's most popular communication platforms start."
We received a similar statement from Sony when they bought the popular esports event EVO in March of this year.
Further updates about the integration of Discord into the PlayStation Network are planned for the coming years Months to follow.
Sony announces investment and partnership with Discord to bring the chat app to PlayStation
Sony and Discord have announced a partnership that will integrate the latter’s popular gaming-focused chat app with PlayStation’s own built-in social tools. It’s a big move and a fairly surprising one given how recently acquisition talks were in the air — Sony appears to have offered a better deal than Microsoft, taking an undisclosed minority stake in the company ahead of a rumored IPO.
The exact nature of the partnership is not expressed in the brief announcement post. The closest we come to hearing what will actually happen is that the two companies plan to “bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year,” which at least is easy enough to imagine.
Discord has partnered with console platforms before, though its deal with Microsoft was not a particularly deep integration. This is almost certainly more than a “friends can see what you’re playing on PS5” and more of a “this is an alternative chat infrastructure for anyone on a Sony system.” Chances are it’ll be a deep, system-wide but clearly Discord-branded option — such as “Start a voice chat with Discord” option when you invite a friend to your game or join theirs.
The timeline of early 2022 also suggests that this is a major product change, probably coinciding with a big platform update on Sony’s long-term PS5 roadmap.
While the new PlayStation is better than the old one when it comes to voice chat, the old one wasn’t great to begin with, and Discord is not just easier to use but something millions of gamers already do use daily. And these days, if a game isn’t an exclusive, being robustly cross-platform is the next best option — so PS5 players being able to seamlessly join and chat with PC players will reduce a pain point there.
Of course Microsoft has its own advantages, running both the Xbox and Windows ecosystems, but it has repeatedly fumbled this opportunity and the acquisition of Discord might have been the missing piece that tied it all together. That bird has flown, of course, and while Microsoft’s acquisition talks reportedly valued Discord at some $10 billion, it seems the growing chat app decided it would rather fly free with an IPO and attempt to become the dominant voice platform everywhere rather than become a prized pet.
Sony has done its part, financially speaking, by taking part in Discord’s recent $100 million H round. The amount they contributed is unknown, but perforce it can’t be more than a small minority stake, given how much the company has taken on and its total valuation.