Microsoft and Discord want your friends to tear apart your gaming skills, now from the comfort of your home. Soon, Xbox players will be able to stream their gameplay from the Xbox Series X/S as well as the Xbox One to friends on Discord with a simple button press on the Discord app.
According to Microsoft, the feature is being rolled out in beta to people in the Xbox Insider members in the Alpha or Alpha Skip-Ahead groups. If a player has their Discord username linked to their Xbox account, they can cycle over to “Parties & chat,” select the Discord overlay then hit the “Stream your game” option. The feature should work from any game being played on an Xbox console.
The feature should be available “soon” to all players, but the company didn’t offer a full release date. It is free to sign up to Xbox Insider, so there’s not much that’s stopping anybody who’s willing to wait for a full release.
In a blog post, Discord said those who pay for Nitro can stream from Xbox to chats in 1080p HD with “increased framerates,” which could mean 60 fps. Users can also stream to a DM or Group DM call. To do so, the person running the Discord chat needs to join the call on desktop or mobile and click the “Transfer to Xbox” button through the app. They can then hit the “Stream your game” option in the Xbox guide.
Discord added the ability to talk directly to those on Xbox in September of last year, but more recently Sony also announced voice chat integration on the PlayStation 5. In effect, Discord is slowly becoming the link between worlds for cross-platform communication.
The online communication company did mention the growth of cross-play, and it hinted at even more integrations with Xbox in the future. It would be swell to eventually reach a place where players can do more than communicate cross-platform directly from their console. You already have games like Fortnite, Among Us, Chivalry 2, and Call of Duty: Warzone that support cross-platform play. With that in mind, Discord seems to be fitting itself into the puzzle as the main apparatus for cross-console communications.