While Twitch is busy looking for ways to increase what can be stream on its platform, Microsoft is silently making plans to introduce a streaming platform that will be easy and comfortable to use. Microsoft, today renamed “Beam”, it game streaming service, which was acquired in August 2016 to “Mixer”. In addition to the new name, the platform is getting a facelift to make it compete with the renowned streaming service, Twitch.
According to Matt Salsamendi, co-founder and lead Engineer at Mixer, He said: “Changing the name to “mixer” was a hard decision made and it was not one that was made lightly. We believed in the power of the service and that we want to make it grow but unfortunately. It cannot be achieved without changing the name”
What’s new
Unlike Twitch where you’re required to open four browser windows when you want to watch some of your friends streaming, with Mixer, you don’t need more than one browser window because it allows co-operative streaming and broadcast in 4K UHD. In addition, Twitch is a little bit messy and somehow tedious to setup but for Mixer, setting it up is very simple and does not require any special techniques for both the viewers and the broadcasters.
The main feature; however, is available now and Microsoft confirmed that very soon (maybe at E3) users would be able to invite their friends to co-stream with them from the Xbox Guide directly. It was confirmed from a major blog that Co-streaming on Mixer does not demand users to stream the same thing, which means that you may be “Fallout 3” while the other is grinding “overwatch” and two others are enjoying “call of duty”. In addition to this, you can also watch the media briefing in 4K UHD on Xbox but currently, we are not sure if the tech giant is working on making 4K games available for broadcasting.
As part of the Upgrade, Mixer is now smarter than Twitch and is confirmed that it will be available for smartphone users with the ability to do everything that PC users can but currently its app is in beta and the company promises to make it available as soon as possible. The mixer will be a feature on the Xbox one dashboard and it will be called “Mixer One”.
With all this from Microsoft, I expect twitch to be awake from its slumber and get back on track to face the coming competition.
