Gamers rejoiced when it was revealed that Discord voice chat support was coming to Xbox. Gamers can now rejoice again as that integration is taking a big step forward towards being easier for everyone. Back in September, Discord and Xbox announced that gamers could join Discord voice chats on their Xbox console; however, it was a really convoluted process. After joining your Xbox and Discord accounts to grant voice chat permissions, players also needed the Xbox mobile app and the Discord app on their phone. From the Discord phone app, you could join a voice chat channel and then in the app choose to transfer to an Xbox. Lots of steps, but in the end you were connected to your console headset and chatting with your squadmates on Discord. Awesome.
One month later, Xbox and Discord are making the whole process much simpler for everyone involved. In the latest update in the Insider channel, Xbox has drastically improved this process. In the update, gamers simply go to the parties and chat channel, choose Discord, and select a server to join a voice channel in. This update completely eliminates the need for the phone apps to be able to join voice channels as long as you have your accounts linked. Direct Messages on Discord still need the app on either your phone or PC though. Hopefully that comes in the future as well since Discord and Xbox seem to be trying to make the experience as seamless as possible.
Discord is far and away the most popular gaming social media platform. Gamers use it for text chat, voice chat, finding groups, and talking to like-minded fans of games and gaming in general. It was already preferred as the default voice chat option over Xbox party chat before the console integration came along and Xbox was smart enough to realize that. Just how much Discord and Xbox are able to integrate moving forward will have a strong impact on the future of gaming communication, as well as major implications on the gaming landscape at large depending on what comes next.
Image from: Xbox/Discord
