Microsoft gives up its video-streaming service, Mixer. It is quite a surprise, especially since they are pushing their content creators and other users to move to Facebook instead. As reported by Byberry, the social media tech giant created and launched Facebook Gaming. Facebook Gaming is a new competition against veteran video streaming services such as Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer.
According to the source article by CNBC, the company decided to retract their service due to its failure to dominate the market. Microsoft is still in the race when it comes to game development, console hardware, and cloud service. However, they have given up on Mixer and will instead focus their attention on launching a new version of the Xbox video game console this year.
Microsoft bought Beam four years ago, a startup game streaming service that they then renamed Mixer in 2017. They come in third with YouTube being the oldest and Amazon’s Twitch in 2014. Despite being a strong competitor, there is no doubt that Mixer still lacked compared to other game-streaming services.
In a data analysis form from Stream Hatchet, owned by Streamlabs, Microsoft’s Mixer failed to gain more traction compared to Twitch. In his blog post this Monday, Microsoft’s executive vice president Phil Spencer wrote, “Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the service for them as quickly and broadly as possible. It became clear that the time needed to grow our own live streaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”
Microsoft did try to enhance Mixer’s user base by trying to poach major content creators to switch to their service. Despite succeeding, it cannot be said that their effort was fruitful. Mixer’s operations will come to a halt on July 22. After that, the homepage will redirect to the Facebook website fb.gg. With Mixer out of the equation, Microsoft and Facebook are working towards a cloud streaming service named xCloud, which is already in preview.
The head of Facebook Gaming, Vivek Sharma, stated in her blog post, “Imagine a scenario where people can instantly move from watching a Facebook Gaming creator’s live stream to jumping in and playing the game with their closest friends, all in one click. Project xCloud can help change the way people discover games by expanding our Playable Ads format, enabling Xbox games on your mobile device. While scrolling News Feed, people could try out awesome games from Xbox Game Pass immediately, further blurring the line between discovery and play.”