Just a few days after Discord talks with potential buyer Microsoft fell through, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan announced a partnership with the company. As part of the latest funding round, Sony has made a minority investment in Discord, too.
The exceedingly popular communication service (as of December 2020, it registered 140 million monthly active users) will be integrated into PlayStation starting early next year.
At PlayStation, we’re constantly looking for new ways to enable players around the world to connect with one another, form new friendships and communities, and share fun experiences and lasting memories. It’s in this spirit that we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Discord, the communication service popularized by gamers and used by more than 140 million people every month around the world.
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.
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. Empowering players to create communities and enjoy shared gaming experiences is at the heart of what we do, so we are beyond excited to start this journey with one of the world’s most popular communication services.
Of course, Discord integration with Xbox already happened a long while ago, three years ago to be exact, though it is quite thin as it only allows linking of Xbox Live and Discord accounts so that your Discord friends can be updated on what you’re currently playing on Xbox. It is presently unclear whether the integration with PlayStation will be similar or deeper; we’ll keep you apprised as more details appear in the coming months, of course.
