Nearly a year after Discord announced that you can stream Xbox games directly on its platform, the popular instant messaging app announced today that a new update is rolling out to Xbox users.
In a press release, the company confirmed that Xbox Insiders will soon be able to access three new Discord features from Xbox Series X, Series S, and Xbox One. The most notable one is that Xbox owners can watch their friends' Discord streams directly on Xbox consoles, regardless of whether or not the friend is streaming their game on PC, mobile, or even another Xbox device.
The other two new features include Xbox owners seeing additional information about their Discord friends directly from their Xbox console. Information such as mutual servers, friends, and their Gamertag will be visible when using Discord on Microsoft's eighth or ninth-generation home gaming console. Lastly, the new update will allow users to call their Discord friends directly from their Xbox console without using a voice channel to initiate the conversation.
The announcement is the latest development in Discord's expansion beyond mobile and PC devices to home console gaming hardware. Discord and Microsoft first announced a collaboration back in 2022 when Microsoft revealed it was bringing voice chat integration to Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. A year later, the aforementioned ability to stream Xbox games from your console onto Discord came.
Beyond working with Microsoft, Discord has also partnered with PlayStation to bring the messaging app to PS5. Most recently, last June, Discord revealed that a new update for PS5 allowed Discord users to join voice chats directly from the console.
The updates made to both platforms are part of Discord's bigger push it revealed earlier this year, where the company wanted to double-down on its gaming-focused roots to become the go-to communication platform for gamers, whether it was gamers looking to start a server to host virtual game nights or game developers looking to use the app as a communication tool to interact with its fan base.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
