Connecting external devices to a gaming voice chat service

One or more non-transitory machine-readable media having stored therein a program product, which, when executed a set of one or more processor units, causes the set of one or more processor units to perform operations that comprise:

• detecting a request to initiate a voice chat session with a user who is not logged in to a voice chat service for a gaming system;
• sending an external invitation to join the voice chat session to an external device of the user, wherein the external device is external to the gaming system;
• detecting rejection of the external invitation;
• responsive to said detecting rejection of the external invitation, storing an indication to send an internal invitation to the user, wherein the internal invitation is internal to the gaming system;
• detecting sign-in of the user into the voice chat service for the gaming system;
• sending the internal invitation to the user through the gaming system, wherein said sending the internal invitation to the user through the gaming system comprises determining that the voice chat session is still active based on determining that an entry exists in a queue of voice chat reservations;
• and
• connecting the user to the voice chat session responsive to acceptance of the internal invitation.