TOKYO — Sony Group has bought into Discord, an American chat platform popular with gamers, aiming to integrate it into the Japanese electronics company’s PlayStation ecosystem.
The minority investment of an undisclosed sum was announced by subsidiary Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was made as part of a $100 million funding round that Discord announced in December.
The PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 already offer chat via the PlayStation Network online service. “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,” SIE said in a blog post on the new partnership.
With the tie-up, Sony is expected to improve voice chat functions in the PlayStation ecosystem and let gamers talk to peers who use computers and other gaming devices.
Discord offers text, voice and video chat, drawing roughly 140 million users a month. Some companies have adopted it for remote workers.
Microsoft was in talks to acquire Discord for at least $10 billion before they were called off, according to news reports.
