• More than three years after announcing a partnership, Discord will soon be fully functional on PlayStation 5 consoles.
• The platform is currently testing the ability to launch a voice chat directly from the console in Japan and the wider Asian continent.
• Once Discord is confident the platform works as intended, functionality will roll out to other regions.

More than three years ago Sony Interactive Entertainment and Discord announced that they’d be partnering up to bring the voice chat platform to PlayStation consoles. That integration has taken years to get right and finally, PlayStation 5 owners won’t have to jump through hoops to chat to their friends.

While Discord has been available on consoles before today, users would have to launch the Discord app on their phones before handing the call off to the console. A minor inconvenience to be sure but one that added unnecessary friction to the experience. Now, PlayStation 5 users will be able to launch voice calls on Discord directly from their console.

“Starting today, we’re rolling out the ability to join a Discord call directly from your PlayStation 5 console — no mobile app needed! No matter if your friends are using the desktop app, are out and about on the mobile app, or are also console gamers, you can chat with ‘em whenever you want. This is a gradual release starting in Japan/Asia, followed by more regions in the coming weeks,” Discord wrote in a blog post.

Once the functionality becomes available, PlayStation 5 owners will be able to launch a chat with a few button presses. Console players will need to link their PlayStation Network account to Discord if they haven’t done so previously.

Discord will be accessible from the console’s Game Base menu which is located within the Control Center application that pops up when you press the PlayStation button on your controller.

The platform says that it hopes to make Discord available to all PlayStation 5 users “VERY soon”.

This functionality has been available for Xbox since 2022 for both the Xbox One and Series X|S consoles. The fact that it’s taken this long for Discord to introduce the same functionality to PlayStation is rather concerning given that the two companies are in partnership together. That having been said, it could be the case that the PlayStation environment introduces complexities not found on the Xbox platform.

The good news is that if you have friends who play on other platforms, it will be easier to jump into a voice chat with them on your PS5.