According to Bloomberg, Microsoft may be making a bid to buy Discord for upwards of $10 billion dollars.
Discord, a popular chat and forum app, has become a fixture in online gaming communities over the last few years. It has especially grown during the pandemic, as people have figured out ways safely to remain in touch and interact with one another. This potential acquisition fits what Bloomberg describes as Microsoft’s strategy of “shopping for assets that would provide access to thriving communities of users.”
With a growing community of over 100 million active users per month, Discord is an obvious target for Microsoft, and Discord users have been clamoring for integration of the app with a console or two. It seems that with this move Microsoft is trying to make that happen on the Xbox
While a deal has yet to be formalized, Microsoft seems to be actively engaged in conversations with Discord to seal the deal in the future. According to Bloomberg, though, Microsoft isn’t Discord’s only suitor; its developers have previously spoken to at least Epic Games and Amazon.
Microsoft has been on a shopping spree, purchasing a number of existing developers and bringing them into the fold as first-party studios for Xbox. The most recent and biggest of these acquisitions was that of Bethesda, which made the news last fall but only finally closed earlier this month. Adding Discord to the mix would really round out these expenditures and put Microsoft in an envious position this console generation, after stumbling their way through the last. Let’s see if they wind up closing the deal.