Starting July 22, Mixer will be no more. Microsoft’s streaming service will be closed and operations will be moved over to Facebook Gaming, per Microsoft Head of Gaming Phil Spencer. Partners currently on Mixer include Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek.
Mixer has been around only since May 25, 2017. It never became the competitor to Twitch and YouTube that Microsoft wanted it to be. Now, Microsoft will switch over to Facebook Gaming for good.
Current Mixer streaming partners will be on Facebook Gaming starting today. Starting on July 22, Mixer will automatically redirect to Facebook Gaming.
“We started pretty far behind, in terms of where Mixer’s monthly active viewers were compared to some of the big players out there,” Spencer told The Verge. “I think the Mixer community is really going to benefit from the broad audience that Facebook has through their properties, and the abilities to reach gamers in a very seamless way through the social platform Facebook has.”
Mixer’s point systems and subscription rewards will all switch over to the equivalent on Facebook. Mixer’s monetization program is switching to Facebook’s Level Up program. Also, Mixer users who have remaining Ember balances, channel subscriptions, or Mixer Pro subscriptions will receive Xbox gift card credit.
Shroud, Ninja and any other Mixer partners are now available to stream on Twitch or YouTube. Also, they could also sign a new contract with Facebook to keep exclusivity. For what it’s worth, Ninja did switch some of his Twitch panels on his page that he hasn’t streamed on in almost a year.
Microsoft is still gearing up for the full use of their xCloud service. They hope that their jump to Facebook will help garner more users in the future. “When we think about xCloud and the opportunity to unlock gameplay for 2 billion players, we know it’s going be critically important that our services find large audiences and Facebook clearly gives us that opportunity,” Spencer told The Verge.
