Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One users can now hop into Discord Voice chats directly through the console system software.
The feature was announced and went into testing back in July and has now progressed through to full public availability, meaning that Xbox, PC and mobile users can all chat together.
This has been one of the most-requested features of the last few years, as Discord has risen to become the go-to voice and text chat platform for gamers. Up until now Xbox users would have had to either play with Windows 10/11 gamers willing to use the Xbox party chat system on PC, rely on in-game voice chat solutions, or go through the awkward hoop of chatting on phone while gaming on console.
However, it’s not quite as direct as the Xbox party chat. Discord isn’t a system-level feature, but a kind of extension that uses the Discord smartphone app to connect your Xbox to a particular chat.
In order to use Discord on Xbox, you must first connect your Discord and Xbox accounts (even if you’ve done so in the past). You can do this using the Discord smartphone app, web browser, Xbox, Xbox app or PC – see here for details.
Once connected, you can then use the smartphone app, PC app or web browser and join a voice chat and select “Transfer Voice to Xbox”.
Once you’re in the chat, you can expect a familiar interface to an Xbox party chat, complete with the ability to individually alter volumes, mute, and more.
Yes, there’s a few hurdles to jump through in order to use Discord Voice, but it feels quite a bit less awkward than having to chat on your phone and listen to your console audio output, and is significantly more simple than it was during testing!
What’s a little surprising at this point is that Sony has yet to announce their own counterpart feature – though it has been rumoured in the last few weeks. Sony invested heavily within Discord in May 2021 and potentially staved off a buyout by Microsoft (who were rumoured to be lining up a $10 billion acquisition offer). With that investment, Discord and Sony quickly brought some integrations to the platform, and it wouldn’t have been crazy speculation to think that deep Xbox integration was then less likely, if not completely off the table. It now feels like we might soon be able to have PlayStation and Xbox gamers teaming up for Destiny Raids and chatting to one another using in-built Discord Voice support.
Source: Xbox
