Sony Inc. has announced a brand new way to make its PlayStation, the most popular gaming system in the world, more interactive. The company has revealed that it is currently working through the process of fostering a partnership with chatting app Discord, and looking to integrate the platform into the PlayStation.
According to the announcement, the move is meant to “bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year.” Through this partnership, the two companies look to unify the social features available on PlayStation, with the gaming ones that Discord is known for. This will help users interact with other players more easily, something that is much required for a better gaming experience, and something that the PlayStation has lacked at, till now.
Discord is a gamer’s best friend, and almost a necessity for any gamer. However, up until now, the feature has been limited to PC players, as consoles still have to do their chatting the peasant way-through in game mics (urghhhh). With this announcement, PS players may soon be able to join PC players on Discord parties.
The electronics giant has also managed to acquire a minority stake in the online communication platform, though it has not disclosed just how many stakes it now owns. It was competing against Microsoft for this acquisition, as per news reports that had surfaced only a few days ago. It may be worth mentioning that it was Discord, rather than Microsoft, who walked away from the deal. Details of the partnership haven’t been announced either, and as of now, all we know is that the deal will come to fruition early next year.
This is not the first time that Discord has paired up with gaming consoles, although it does appear to be the first time that the partnership is likely to be wide-spanning, with a possible system-wide integration. Another speculation which seems to be on point is that this new product offering could well be a major change in the PlayStation’s core system. As such, users might do well to expect a communication platform which allows them to seamlessly voice chat with other players, and which is supported irrespective of whether the players are making use of the PlayStation console proper, or simply playing through their personal computer.
It seems that as regards the acquisition front, Sony offered a better deal to Discord than was provided by competitor Microsoft. Microsoft had almost succeeded at acquiring a couple of stakes at Discord, before the deal, which had put Discord at a valuation of around $10 billion, was called off. In fact, reports claim that Microsoft was not the only company that was eyeing the stakes at the chatting platform, and that there were two other companies that were in talks for the same, and one of them might as well have been Sony. Why is Discord so popular among investors, you ask? It is because the company managed to double its valuation in less than six months flat as of last year, and seems set on doing similarly, or better, this year too.
Seeing that Sony has only acquired minority stakes at the company, Discord might still be able to retain its originality despite the deal, something that it has been adamant about for quite a while, and which seems to be one of the main reasons for the tie-breaker with Microsoft.
