Photo: Chen Yuyu/VCG via Getty Images
Microsoft is shuttering its would-be Twitch rival Mixer and will transition its partners and live-gaming streamers to Facebook's gaming platform, it said Monday.
The big picture: With the shuttering of the service, Microsoft is conceding that Mixer never achieved the scale and prominence needed to adequately compete with livestream gaming giants like Amazon's Twitch and Google's YouTube.
Details: The service will shut down as of July 22, on which date all Mixer sites and apps will 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," Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, told The Verge.
- According to The Verge, the shift in strategy should help bring Microsoft's forthcoming cloud-based game-streaming service directly to Facebook's massive user base.
- Facebook launched its gaming service in April.
Be smart: The announcement comes despite the fact that Microsoft recently poured millions of dollars to sign key creators to get Mixer off the ground.
- Most notably, it signed Twitch live-gaming superstar Tyler Blevins, also known as "Ninja," exclusively in 2019.
History lesson: It's Microsoft's second failed attempt to take on streaming video. It previously scrapped MSN Soapbox, an attempt to take on YouTube.