It looks like Discord voice chat is coming to PS5, too
Discord is doing its best to become an all-encompassing voice chat option no matter where you play, and it looks like we'll be able to chat with even more console pals soon.
As spotted by The Verge, dataminer Advaith has apparently discovered evidence that voice chat integration will come to PS5 in the near future. Sadly it looks like there's nothing in the works for PS4 users outside of the already-available option to display game activity. The leak quickly follows on from the platform's integration with Xbox, which was pushed out to everyone back in September.
It's admittedly been a finicky process hooking up to voice chat on console—the whole thing requires you to have your mobile phone at the ready and the Xbox app installed—but with the phone requirement dropped soon, hopefully that means the PlayStation version will also be a simple few taps to dive into Discord voice channels.
Discord PS5 voice integration pic.twitter.com/Qsq2JqUDDHOctober 23, 2022
It was only a matter of time before voice integration for Sony's latest console arrived. The publisher made a minority investment in Discord in May last year. Sony president Jim Ryan said the goal was "to bring the Discord and PlayStation experience closer together on console and mobile," adding that this year the company wanted to allow "friends, groups, and communities to hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together." That started out with the option to link your PlayStation Network account to Discord at the beginning of this year which allowed for the aforementioned game activity display, but voice chat is the real prize that our consoles pals have been eagerly waiting for.
As someone who occasionally favours the comfort of my couch and console over gaming at the same desk I work from (hi!), the option to easily access Discord voice chat from my PS5 is a welcome one. Sure I can use it on my phone, but it's irritating having to squash my earphones into my earholes to talk in Discord while plonking my headset on top for game sound. Being able to talk to our friends who game on other platforms is never a bad thing, either.
Assuming this is real, it's not yet clear when the integration will go live, or whether it'll spend a few months in beta testing akin to Xbox. We've reached out to Discord for comment on the apparent leak and will update if we hear back.