Back in March of 2021, right around the time when Microsoft was in its final brewing stages of Windows 11, a purchase of Discord was potentially on the cards.
The Redmond giant was one of those interested and reports suggested that the acquisition could go through with Microsoft paying around US$10 billion. Although initially it was expected that the tech giant would successfully acquire Discord by April of 2021, those plans fail through as Discord opted instead for an IPO (initial public offering).
It is probably not a bad guess to suggest that Microsoft would likely have married Discord"s services and features into its own Xbox Game Bar to offer more features to gamers. So while the acquisition didn"t go through, Microsoft is, nonetheless, expanding the capabilities of its own Xbox Game Bar with a new Microsoft Teams Play Together widget. It essentially adds to the capabilities of the Game Bar by adding Teams" video chat to it. It is however distinct from the earlier Teams" Games for Work feature.
In the app"s description, it explains that users can screen-share their gameplay via Teams:
Description
Xbox Game Bar and Microsoft Teams (free) partnered together so you and your friends have a place to hang out while watching and playing games. You"ll have to create or sign into your personal Microsoft account to get the Teams Play Together widget. Screenshare your gameplay via Teams while playing on a Windows 11 PC, and keep the conversation going with video calls which you’ll see via the Game Bar’s video overlay.
Although the description specifies Windows 11, the application works on Windows 10 as well. The system requirements are given below:
System Requirements
- Available on: PC
- OS: Windows 10 version 17763.0 or higher
- Architecture: x86, x64
- Keyboard: Not specified
- Mouse: Not specified
- Camera: Not specified
The features of the app have been summarised below:
Features
- See videos of friends overlaid on top of game
- Generate and share a link with anyone on any device
- Up to 20 people can join your call
- Continue the conversation post-call via chat
Teams Play Together, which was released yesterday (spotted by MSPoweruser), can be downloaded from Microsoft Store at this link. As mentioned in the description above, a Microsoft Account is required.