Regrettably, Microsoft has made the announcement that Mixer, their streaming service will soon be a thing of the past. The service will be shutting down on July 22. On that same date, its sites and steamers will be redirected over to competitor Facebook Gaming as part of a deal.
More important priorities
The grim news comes from a post on Xbox Wire today, written by Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer. The post explains that the company realized it couldn't meet the demands of its Mixer service in terms of growth while simultaneously attending to other platforms and services.
"Our priority and focus is on the world-class content being made by our 15 Xbox Game Studios, the evolution of Xbox Game Pass, the launch of Xbox Series X, and the global opportunity to play anywhere with Project xCloud," wrote Spencer.
Mixer is an online streaming service that allows PC and Xbox platform users to live-stream their gameplay around the world. This once pits the service against several competitors like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming.
Almost a year prior to the announcement, there have been ongoing reports about Mixer's viewership declining by the millions, greatly affecting its users including Tyler "Ninja" Blevins who had previously transitioned from Twitch.
Streamers heading to Facebook
Following the decision to shut down Mixer, Microsoft also announced it will be teaming up with Facebook to migrate all of the former's streamers to the latter's own streaming service Facebook Gaming, starting today.
Additionally, those Mixer partners who signed up for the Mixer monetization program will be able to transition into the Facebook Level Up program without problems
All of this implies those streamers who had signed exclusive deals with the streaming service prior to the decision.
These users can migrate to Facebook Gaming if they chose to but are also given the option to migrate to Twitch instead. Whichever they choose, Microsoft will provide useful information to help them make the journey.
So far, there hasn't been any word from famous Mixer users like Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek and Tyler "Ninja" Blevins about a possible return to Twitch following this shakeup in the streaming market.
Mixer Technology still salvageable
Although Mixer is going away, the resources that were used to put it all together will not. According to the same post, Microsoft will "leverage Mixer’s deep investments" to be used for related technologies.
The company will also "invest more time in its upcoming Project xCloud technology. The service will allow Xbox Seris X users to leverage the power of the cloud for augmenting their gaming experience and stream games in the near future.
