Sony’s stake in Discord is to integrate the voice chat services in its PlayStation Network.
Sony has announced its investment for minority stake in Discord, an VoIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform with aim to bring the Discord chat services in to its PlayStation Console for the gaming enthusiasts. This investment is part of Discord’s Series H round funding.
Both Sony and Discord are now working closely to integrate the PlayStation Network with Discord across PlayStation Consoles and mobile devices. Till now Discord does not exist on any gaming consoles. Now with the cross-platform multiplayer is more common, it is becoming necessary for major gaming companies like Sony and Microsoft, to have quality cross-platform voice chat solutions integrated to their gaming consoles.
Microsoft has already added a level of integration with Discord for its family of Xbox Consoles. However, the functionality is limited to show you who on your Discord’s friends list is playing on which Xbox console, but there is no option of having voice chat with your Discord’s friends list on Xbox.
The details of Sony’s investment is not known. With Sony’s investment in Discord and its planned in-depth integration with the PlayStation consoles, we really don’t know the impact of integration of Microsoft’s Xbox consoles with Discord. Whether this integration will be extended to Xbox or not, remains to be seen.
SIE President and CEO, Jim Ryan “Together, our teams are already hard at work connecting Discord with your social and gaming experience on PlayStation Network. Our goal is to bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year, allowing friends, groups, and communities to hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together.”
This investment is expected to see the results sometime in early 2022.
