Microsoft is reportedly one of a handful of companies currently making enquiries about a potential acquisition of Discord.

Reports from both Bloomberg (paywall) and Venturebeat revealed that any potential buyout of the popular chat platform would cost cost at least $10 billion, meaning that any prospective buyer would need considerably deep pockets; with such a large valuation, any sort of deal would likely only be found among companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google. Venturebeat also reports that an unknown party has entered an “exclusive acquisition discussion” with the company.

Bloomberg reports that Discord may decide to go public instead, with gaming properties such as Roblox being valuated at over $40 billion, such a move may be more favourable.

Originally released in 2015, Discord has found immense popularity amongst gamers specifically, but has also evolved to support hobbies such as podcasting. The chat platform is pitched as an alternative to software such as TeamSpeak and Skype, the latter of which was acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in 2011.

If a potential buyout from Microsoft were to happen, we’d likely see Discord integrated into the Xbox ecosystem, providing players with a better way to communicate with users on PC and mobile. With cross-play becoming more common (and somewhat expected), such a move would provide a high quality solution for cross-platform communication.