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Sony has made a minority investment in chat platform Discord, and in doing so kicked off a partnership that will see the popular voice and text chat service connect with PlayStation in 2022.

Alissa McAloon, Publisher

May 3, 2021

1 Min Read

Only weeks after chatting with Microsoft about a potential sale, Discord has forged a partnership with Sony and landed a minor investment from the PlayStation company in the process.

That partnership, along with a minor contribution to Discord's Series H, means that the two companies are now working to integrate Discord and PlayStation Network to some degree both on PlayStation consoles and mobile by 2022.

The exact shape of that integration is still taking form but Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan says that the partnership will ideally "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."

Ryan goes on to share his excitement for the new partnership with Discord co-founders Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, saying that duo shares PlayStation's desire to empower communities and champion shared gaming experiences.

"We are beyond excited to start this journey with one of the world’s most popular communication services," adds Ryan. "It’s always a privilege to work with great partners to bring fresh experiences to our fans, and we’ll have more to share in the coming months."

As mentioned before, this team-up falls only weeks after Xbox-maker Microsoft was reportedly in talks to purchase Discord for a whopping $10 billion. Sources close to the deal reported that the sale fell through in mid-April, due in part to Discord's desire to stay independent for the time being. Part of those earlier acquisition rumors also suggested that Discord could be interested in pursuing an IPO, though the company has yet to officially comment on the potential of a public future.

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