PlayStation x Discord: Is this the partnership gaming needs?

PlayStation Discord Partnershop Logo

It’s not been long since there were reports that Discord was trying to be bought by Microsoft and now we have a new Discord partnership with PlayStation? It’s hard to understand why there’s such a “one or the other” relationship between Sony and Microsoft but we have everything you need to know about the new partnership below.

Discord x PlayStation: A Partnership

Yep. It’s not something we expected so soon after Discord’s statement on independence, but here we are. Discord and PlayStation are entering a partnership that will bring the messaging service to PlayStation consoles at the beginning of next year.

The situation is a little different to how Microsoft were hoping things would play out, though. Microsoft wanted to buy Discord outright for around $12 billion, reportedly. However, Discord has insisted that it wants to remain an independent entity.

Bloomberg has reported that Discord is now focused on “a potential public listing in the long term”. This is what has led to PlayStation making a “minority investment” as opposed to a Microsoft “buy-out” attempt and perhaps is the reason why PlayStation were more successful in their negotiations. You can check out the statement below, in any case:

Jim Ryan, SIE CEO, On The Partnership

Below, we have some of the highlights from Jim Ryan’s statement (that’s linked in the tweet above):

” At PlayStation, we’re constantly looking for new ways to enable players around the world to connect with one another… It’s in this spirit that we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Discord, the communication service popularized by gamers…”

” 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.”

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” To bring these experiences to life for our players, Sony Interactive Entertainment has made a minority investment as part of Discord’s Series H round. From our very first conversation with co-founders Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, I was inspired by their lifelong love for gaming and our teams’ shared passion to help bring friends and communities together in new ways.”

Is this the start of Sony’s take-over? The minority investment was to be expected, but we know how things happen… Either way, for now, we’re looking at Discord integration starting at some time in 2022.

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For full integration, we’re looking at something like mid-to-late 2022. We can imagine there will be some regional beta-testing and closed beta access periods throughout 2022 before this is a commonplace feature on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles.

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