Mixer is no more. Xbox is shutting down its in-house live-streaming service this summer and transitioning its entire platform to Facebook Gaming, in an endeavor to apace aggrandize its audience base. All Mixer services will go dark on July 22nd, and its sites and apps will redirect to Facebook Gaming.

Afterwards July 22nd, native streaming from the Xbox One will but exist possible via Twitch, Mixer's largest competitor.

"Information technology became clear that the time needed to grow our own live-streaming customs to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now," Xbox caput Phil Spencer said in an Xbox Wire postal service.

Mixer Partners that brand the bound to Facebook Gaming will receive like status in that location, and Microsoft says existing agreements will be followed equally closely as possible by the new management. Streamers participating in Mixer's monetization program will be eligible for -- but non automatically enrolled in -- the Facebook Gaming Level Up Plan, which unlocks the ability to earn money through Stars and Fan Subscriptions.

Mixer viewers with leftover Embers, the service's in-house monetary system, volition receive a digital Xbox gift bill of fare worth a "like value." This converted credit should appear in Xbox accounts by July 31st, and information technology will expire on September 30th.

Streamlabs

Streamlabs

Today'southward news came as a surprise to the streaming community, particularly considering all the work (and coin) that Microsoft has been funneling into Mixer. Belatedly concluding year, Microsoft dropped millions of dollars to secure height personalities like Soleil "Faze Ewok" Wheeler, Cory "Male monarch Gothalion" Michael, Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek, and the biggest catch, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins. When Mixer signed Ninja, he had 14.seven meg followers on Twitch. As of today, Ninja has only over 3 million followers on Mixer.

It was reported at the time that Microsoft spent $20 million to $xxx million to lure Ninja away from Twitch. With today's news, Ninja, Shroud and the other Mixer-exclusive streamers are ostensibly free to re-join Twitch or any other platform.

Multiple people involved in the esports and streaming industries are reporting that Ninja and Shroud, Mixer's two biggest names, turned down multimillion-dollar deals with Facebook Gaming amid Mixer's closure. Esports consultant Rod Breslau said Facebook offered both streamers "well-nigh double" the amount of their original contracts, only they opted for a buy-out from Mixer instead.

"Ninja and Shroud are at present free agents," he said.

Hours after the Mixer news dropped, Shroud said on Twitter that he'due south nevertheless figuring out his next move. Similarly, Ninja tweeted, "I dear my community and what we built together on Mixer. I take some decisions to make and volition be thinking about you all as I make them."

Mixer enjoyed plenty of attention following its streamer-signing spree in late 2019, though it'southward been unable to truly compete with Twitch, Amazon's alive-video service. In the first quarter of this yr, Mixer was the No. 2 service in terms of hours streamed, and it had more streamers than YouTube and Facebook Gaming combined, according to Streamlabs. However, in terms of total hours watched, Mixer fell far behind its counterparts: Twitch clocked 3.1 billion hours, YouTube Gaming hitting i billion, Facebook Gaming reached 553.8 million, and Mixer eked out 81.4 one thousand thousand.

Streamlabs

Streamlabs

Mixer was able to sign streamers, but it wasn't able to turn those deals into eyeballs -- which is what advertisers want to see. Mixer's "hours watched" numbers have been continually falling since their tiptop in 2019, according to Streamlabs. Facebook Gaming, on the other hand, has been reeling in more and more than viewers, and its "hours watched" metric grew 236 per centum from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020.

Xbox is preparing to launch the Xbox Serial Ten this fall, and it's attempting to build a solid foundation for the next generation of console gaming. Mixer was clearly a weak betoken. Past offloading the budget of an entire streaming platform, Microsoft is free to focus on services like Projection xCloud, the backbone of Xbox's cloud-gaming service.

"Gaming is already part of our social fabric, and Project xCloud can accept you from discussing a new game -- whether it'south a funny in-game moment posted by a friend, an ad, or an ongoing stream -- straight to playing it," Spencer wrote. "In the hereafter, through the ability of Xbox Alive and Project xCloud, nosotros run across there being simply one click between 'I'yard watching' and 'I'1000 playing.'"

This sounds like to plans that Google has laid out for Stadia, its rival cloud-gaming system. As the next generation of console gaming begins, Microsoft is already competing with Google, Amazon, Sony, Nintendo and dozens of other huge companies -- merely at least in terms of alive-streaming, information technology now has Facebook on its side.