Well, that was fast. Sony has announced a new partnership with Discord in post on their website today, less than two weeks after Discord broke off acquisition talks with Microsoft and at least three other interested parties, reportedly to focus on an IPO. The price for acquiring Discord was reportedly somewhere north of $10 billion.
Sony’s involvement isn’t a buyout, but rather a minority investment in Discord, offering some ownership of the company while allowing Discord to remain independent. In the post on the website, Sony President and CEO Jim Ryan said the “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.”
“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,” Ryan continued. “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.”
Honestly, it’s a huge get for Sony and PlayStation, especially if they bring features like streaming directly to Discord to from PlayStation consoles. Even if that doesn’t happen, it will be nice to talk to your friends on Discord while playing on your PS5.