The streaming space is increasingly becoming contentious, with Twitch, Youtube Gaming, and now Mixer.
Microsoft unveiled the future of the Beam platform, and that future involves a name change to Mixer. With the change comes many features that will make streamers on Windows 10 and Xbox One very happy.
In the announcement today, Microsoft unveiled a set of features that will set it apart from Twitch, and Youtube Gaming, one of which is the ability to crowd play games. In the announcement, Microsoft used the example of TellTale Games, and the ability to crowdsource choices as you go through the game.
Jump into a TellTale game on Mixer and you will have the option to solicit choices from the community as you play. It will allow the game to be played by people worldwide, much like the now famous Twitch Plays Pokemon, only built right into the platform. While it is limited to only a selection of games right now, with the interactive 2.0 development kit, more developers can add it to their games.
The features do not stop there though, Mixer will also offer steamers the ability to co-op stream. This will allow up to four streamers to join streams into one stream, showing all aspects of gameplay, from all views, even if you are not in the same location or even the same country. For games such as PLAYERUNKNOWN’S Battlegrounds, or League of Legends this will be an exciting feature and one that should allow group streams much easier, without the need of external software.
Mixer will also offer a mobile option to stream from your phone and allow for self-broadcasting. It will soon also allow you to stream gameplay from your phone ensuring if you are on the go, playing games such as Pokemon Go, you can stream to all your fans, and even be able to join in the aforementioned co-op streams be they on PC, Xbox One or Mobile.
To top this all off, Mixer will have a place on the Xbox Dashboard, and starting today it will be available to all Xbox Insiders to experience first hand. The new dashboard will be a place to find new streams to enjoy and will feature people from the community. It will be curated by a dedicated team and will feature content that will appeal to a wide range of people.
Mixer is clearly the next major push for Microsoft and Xbox, and with all they have feature wise, it has the potential to be a thorn in Twitch’s side. It will all depend on if people adopt it as the platform of choice. To facilitate this, Microsoft announced today that Mixer will be the place to watch all things E3 from June 11, 2017 to June 15, 2017, and will be streaming the Xbox Press Conference live in 4K on the Mixer platform, with exclusive digital bonuses for people who online.
