Microsoft Mixer will close on July 22nd.
James Martin / CNET
Microsoft’s game streaming service Mixer is shutting down, and the technology giant is asking users to switch to Facebook Gaming instead. The decision, announced on Monday, came after Microsoft decided that the time it took Mixer to grow was too long compared to “the vision and experience that Microsoft and Xbox are now delivering to gamers.” . The service will be discontinued on July 22.
“We work with Facebook to enable the mixer community to transition to Facebook gaming,” said a mixer blog post. According to the mixer, Facebook Gaming already has 700 million active users per month.
It is also planned to link Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud to the Facebook gaming service.
This means that streamers signed exclusively for Microsoft Mixers, like Ninja and Shroud, are now free to rejoin Twitch, according to The Verge. “It’s up to them and their priorities,” Vivek Sharma, head of Facebook Gaming, told The Verge. Microsoft and Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The blog post states that mixer partners have the option of transferring their contracts to Facebook Gaming, where the agreements are coordinated “as closely as possible”. They also get double their June income.
Streamers participating in Mixer’s open monetization program are eligible for Facebook Gaming’s level-up program, and viewers with excellent Ember credits, Mixer Pro subscriptions, and channel subscriptions receive Xbox credits.
According to the analysis company SensorTower, Mixer has been downloaded around 3.4 million times this year from the App Store and Google Play, a decrease of 23% compared to the previous year. Mixer has been downloaded a total of 21 million times worldwide.