Microsoft to Shut Down Mixer, Partnering with Facebook Gaming
Today Microsoft made the surprise announcement it’d be shutting down the Xbox streaming service, Mixer, and entering into a partnership with Facebook Gaming. Though Mixer has grown in popularity over the years, it has still struggled to keep up with its competitors, Twitch and YouTube Gaming.
In an official statement, the Mixer Team wrote:
Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the platform for them as quickly 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 that Microsoft and Xbox want to deliver for gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.
In the statement, Mixer also revealed that it will be working closely with Facebook in order to help its Partners and the broader Mixer community transition to the new platform. Existing partners will automatically receive partner status once they move over to Facebook Gaming, and existing agreements will be honored and matched as best as possible.
Viewers of the streaming service are being encouraged to spend the rest of their Embers and Sparks to help support Partners and streamers throughout the rest of June. Viewers who have outstanding Ember balances, channel subscriptions or Mixer Pro subscriptions will, according to the statement receive an Xbox Gift Card as a “thank you”.
Mixer live-streaming will officially run through July 22nd. Following that date, the site will redirect users to fb.gg, which is Facebook Gaming’s homepage. Mixer apps and all broadcasting on Xbox One will be disabled. For any questions regarding the shut down and transition, you can check out the FAQ here.
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer also penned a note with regard to the new partnership with Facebook Gaming, putting more emphasis, though, on the future of gaming on Xbox and the company’s vision for Project xCloud technology. Check out his full statement here:
Tori Morrow
Tori is originally from Rapture but now she lives in Chicago. She enjoys open world RPGs, a good narrative-driven game, and is probably the only person still watching The Walking Dead.
