Discord has finally come to PlayStation! It’s been nearly two years since Sony revealed its partnership with the company, but unfortunately, the implementation is feature-lite at the moment. Currently, players can only join voice calls through an external device after connecting their PSN and Discord accounts.
Discord has far more functionality than just voice calls, and even then, the fact that it’s not even available within the hardware itself is pretty strange. Hopefully this is because PlayStation and Discord focused on ensuring that voice chat worked properly before polishing everything else. If so, it would make sense for the two companies to get call functionality live as soon as possible rather than arbitrarily wait until everything else is done.
If it is true that more is coming to Discord on PS5, here’s everything I’d like to see implemented on the console, ranked from least necessary to most necessary.
5. Messaging through PS5
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “Why would I want to message people with a controller? That sounds miserable!” First of all, you can connect a keyboard to your PS5 console (and also a mouse) to make that experience a lot less awkward. Additionally, sending texts with a controller is not that bad!
Before getting into the PC world, most of my online interactions were on the PS3 through a controller, and I learned how to text super fast on that thing. Yes, it’s probably a lot easier to just pick up your phone and text through that rather than waste the extra time it would take to open up the dedicated PS5 application, but that’s why this is merely squarely sat in fifth place. I wouldn’t say no to a feature like this, but it’s far from necessary.
4. Sharing files
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could send images, gameplay footage and other videos saved onto your PS5 to friends? Of course it would! This doesn’t seem much like a stretch as the PS5 already has the ability to upload photos and videos to the mobile PlayStation application, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets added shortly after messaging features are implemented.
It would also be a lot more convenient than taking an image or video, uploading it to the PlayStation application, and saving it onto your phone before sending it to Discord. Instead, you could just skip half of those steps by just taking the image and sending it.
3. Video viewing and sharing
While this isn’t necessary for everyone, it would be fun if players could broadcast the contents of a webcam into a Discord server while they’re gaming. And since PlayStation already has a picture-in-picture mode available while game sharing, it would be cool if you could put the contents of your server’s videos into a little window on a corner of the screen while doing other stuff.
Ideally, this would let you see your friends regardless of whether they’re streaming a game or have their webcams on. It might be somewhat difficult to see what your friends are up to if you’re in a big server and they’re all crammed onto a corner of the screen, but that would certainly be better than not seeing them at all. I’d personally love to enjoy late night webcam convos with friends while gaming on my PS5.
2. PlayStation-dedicated app
This one’s a no-brainer. Currently, the only way users can access Discord on PS5 is through an external device like a phone or computer, but it would be wonderful if we could skip that step all-together. This doesn’t just mean having a carbon copy of the desktop Discord app pushed onto the PS5, but instead refers to functionality that allows us to use the app in the ways that best suit a controller.
I won’t pretend to know exactly how this could look, but that’s why I’m not the one designing UI at PlayStation or Discord. It feels pretty poorly thought out that you can’t access the application through the console itself. This doesn’t even need to include the other features above like photo sharing and messaging, but just being able to join voice calls through the PS5 is a welcome addition.
1. Streaming games to friends
Every one of the desired features above would certainly be nice, but this is the only one that I believe is absolutely necessary for Discord to thrive on PS5, as it’s my favorite thing about the app on desktop. The ability to seamlessly share your screen or stream a game and give your friends the chance to watch and commentate is awesome. Even when I first got my PS5, I remember using a capture card to stream my PS5 screen into my Discord server while I played games like The Last Guardian and Uncharted.
That was a lot of fun, but the capture card method often brought about audio issues and was a pain in the butt to set up. And of course, there’s the problem of having to spend a not-so-little amount of money on a capture card to begin with. It also required my PS5 to be next to my computer, which posed a problem when I got myself an LG OLED TV. Now, I don’t stream my PS5 games into the Discord anymore. It’s far too inconvenient and way too much of a hassle, but I really wish I could again.
It’s not like this technology doesn’t exist on the PS5. Streaming to your friends is not only an option, but you can even let them take control. Viewers can also put that stream in a little window allowing for picture-in-picture mode, which is a phenomenal feature. I can’t pretend I know for sure what it would take for Sony to make this work properly, but it’s easily my most desired feature from Discord on PS5.
