The pandemic made us all spend a lot more time at home than we were probably used to. Going out and seeing mates isn't an option still for many, and you certainly couldn't travel far to see friends on the other side of the country for your normal get-togethers. So to replace the feeling of closeness that many of us lost, people turned to online methods - for many it was two different applications that helped us connect. The first is Zoom - you can't go three minutes without hearing that word these days, and the second was Discord.
Discord has been the biggest platform for gamers to connect on for a while now, after it took the crown from TeamSpeak and Skype. The platform allows you to flit between talking in huge game discords with thousands of people all interested in your game of choice, to personal Discords with just your mates hanging out. This format made it perfect for game enthusiast before the pandemic, but during the last year that expanded to anyone who just wanted a place to hang out with mates and play an occasional game of Among Us. And now Microsoft wants in.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Microsoft is in talks to try and buy Discord for $10 billion. That's even more than the ZeniMax / Bethesda acquisition that the company has just completed, which is a ridiculous amount of money. This information apparently comes from several people who know the matter, one of which said that they think Discord is more likely to go public than to be sold to Microsoft. The report also indicates that Microsoft might not be the only one interested in buying the platform.
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Microsoft is, at the moment, searching for more and more properties to purchase it looks like. According to the Bloomberg report, it has attempted to acquire both TikTok and Pinterest recently and now Discord. This by no means confirms that a sale is in process - Discord is still riding a wave of new users and is probably aware of how large its business could become without the help of Microsoft which has in the past, bought big projects before dropping them like failed streaming platform Mixer. Discord will certainly be wary of this.
However, with Microsoft's increased efforts to improve Game Pass and the Xbox platform significantly, it makes sense that they want a good communication tool to come with their products. Discord's Nitro would be a good addition to Game Pass if a sale was agreed, and it would maybe integrate Discord into Xbox consoles better than Xbox's standard communication tools.
Featured Image Credit: Discord / Microsoft