Mixer Off, Xbox Teams Up With Facebook Gaming

Xbox division chief Phil Spencer has announced that the live streaming video game platform Mixer will be shutting down in July. This statement is not surprising, considering the Mixer has not had a significant improvement in the last 1 year. As a new platform, it is very difficult to fight against rivals such as Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and even Facebook Gaming.

With Mixer turned off, the Mixer community will be moved to the Facebook Gaming platform. Starting July 22, the Mixer website and application when accessed by members will be redirected to Facebook Gaming. For video game streamers called “Mixer Partners” also automatically become Facebook Gaming partners.

According to info, Microsoft paid around 20 to 30 million USD to game streamer Ninja to move from Twitch to Mixer. Apart from Ninja, well-known game streamers Shroud, King Gothalion and Faze Ewok are also moving to Mixer in the not too distant future when Ninja joins. But Ninja’s fortunes have been unlucky since joining Mixer, from having over 14 million followers on Twitch, to now only having 3 million followers on Mixer. Esports consultant Rod Breslau informed Ninja and Shroud of the price offered by Facebook Gaming to Ninja and Shroud, but they refused. This way those streamers can come back to Twitch if they wish, or move on to another livestream platform.

Sources: Facebook offered an insane offer at almost double for the original Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud but Loaded/Ninja/Shroud said no and forced Mixer to buy them out. Ninja made ~$30M from Mixer, and Shroud made ~$10M

Ninja and Shroud are now free agents

— Rod “4475 SR & Immortal peak” Breslau (@Slasher) June 22, 2021

The main focus of Microsoft’s gaming division is their cloud gaming called Project xCloud, and the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. A few weeks ago Microsoft stated that the future of Xbox is not limited to console machines, but to their online-based services. Microsoft targets the number of Project xCloud gamers to reach 2 billion users. For Game Pass, they use a strategy that every Microsoft exclusive game will enter upon release.

Giant Bomb game media editor Jeff Gerstmann said he disagreed with Mixer’s merger with Facebook Gaming. According to him, the “Login with Facebook” button is the thing that is most often ridiculed.

This might seem weird, but the “login with Facebook” button has been one of the most derived things we’ve ever added to the site. Attempting to migrate Mixer users to Facebook Gaming seems pretty ridiculous to me. The audience hates Facebook. And they… probably should.

— Jeff Gerstmann (@jeffgerstmann) June 22, 2021

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