Microsoft has decided to shut down it’s live-streaming service, Mixer, after it fails to meet the expectations of the company.
What We Know:
- On Monday, June 22, Microsoft has decided to shut down its live-streaming service Mixer. The closure of Mixer also comes with the introduction of a new partnership with Facebook and Facebook gaming, where Mixer hopes to bring its community.
- Mixer, originally known as Beam, was a live-streaming service founded by Microsoft in January 2016. The company served as a direct competitor to Amazon’s Twitch, where users could go and watch their favorite personality stream various games. The service largely flew under the radar until early last year when Richard “Ninja” Blevins, who had over 14.6 million Twitch followers at the time, decided to begin streaming on Mixer. Soon, many other large names began to follow.
- While the company has some of the biggest names in gaming, such as “Shroud” Grzesiek and David “TheGrefG” Martinez, it has shown lackluster results. Since, the beginning of 2020, Mixer has had over 3.4 downloads from first time users, a 24% decrease from this time last year.
- “It has become clear that the time needed to grow our own live-streaming community to scale was out of the measure with the vision and experiences that Microsoft and Xbox want to deliver to gamers now,” said Mixer in a blog post earlier this week. The company then proceeded to describe the merger as “a key part of a broader effort that Microsoft and Facebook gaming are embarking” in order to bring “new experiences and opportunities to the entire world of gaming”.
- Facebook Spokesperson, Drew Symonds, was quick to note the partnership is “not a merger or acquisition”. Facebook Gaming will assume the right to the Mixer trademarks and domain names, but Microsoft will retain the intellectual property rights to Mixer tech.
- The end of Mixer also marks the end of contracts between Mixer and its biggest streaming names. While the company promises to “match and honor all existing partner agreements”, it’s ultimately up to the personality to decide which platform to continue streaming on. While some streamers were quick to announce a continued partnership with Mixer, others like Ninja seemed to be more on the fence; saying in a tweet “I have some decisions to make and will be thinking of you all as I make them”.
I love my community and what we built together on Mixer. I have some decisions to make and will be thinking about you all as I make them.
— Ninja (@Ninja) June 22, 2020
Starting July 22nd, all Mixer applications and sites will now redirect users to Facebook Gaming.
