Microsoft’s been on a bit of a spending spree over the past few years, snapping up studios like Obsidian, inXile, Double Fine Productions, and most recently Bethesda owner ZeniMax Media. It might be setting its sights beyond game developers, however, as Bloomberg reports the company could pay over $10 billion (approximately £7.2 billion) for Discord, the voice chat platform we all know and love.
Discord has remained independent since it launched in 2015, and while it has yet to become profitable, an industry insider tells VentureBeat that “the market is in a state where it could command strong double-digit billions of dollars.” This is a substantial jump from Discord’s $7 billion valuation early last year, but isn’t surprising with the increase in remote working throughout 2020.
Another source tells Bloomberg that it’s more likely we’ll see Discord go public than accept an acquisition, but this hasn’t stopped the VOIP service from exploring its next steps and seeking out discussions with Epic Games, Amazon, and now Microsoft. The deal is far from done, however, as the talks with the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, are just to gauge interest.
Since Xbox and PC walk hand-in-hand, it’s difficult to imagine that anything would change for the Windows application, but a Microsoft acquisition could do wonders for its proprietary game chat. And if you’re worried, then you could always switch over to Guilded.gg, which essentially looks like a newer version of Discord with more features.