Almost four years ago, Microsoft acquired Beam, a live streaming service focused on gaming, similar to the likes of Twitch. In the years since then, the company has renamed the service to Mixer, and integrated it with Windows 10 and Xbox One. However, today Microsoft announced that Mixer is being killed off next month.
To make things easier for its existing users, Microsoft decided to partner with Facebook Gaming, another up-and-coming name in the live streaming industry. From July 22, any attempt to access Mixer will direct users to the Facebook Gaming portal, and the company will help creators transition as well. Creators that have a Mixer partnership will be granted partner status at Facebook Gaming.
In the meantime, users can spend their Embers and Sparks on their favorite creators, and they will result in double the reward for thew creator during this time. If you have unused embers, Mixer Pro subscriptions, or channel subscriptions, you"ll get the equivalent to how much credit you have left in an Xbox gift card.
Microsoft says the reason it decided to shut down operations at Mixer is that it simply couldn"t spend enough time growing its community while keeping in line with its current vision for gaming. The idea is to bring as many people into the world of Xbox as possible, and Facebook simply has a much larger community to build off of. That"s not surprising, considering many reports have shown Microsoft"s service to be performing very poorly compared to its competitors. However, technology built for Mixer will continue to be used in other Microsoft services, such as the ultra-low-latency video capabilities living on in Microsoft Teams.