Microsoft rebrands Beam as Mixer with more livestreaming features

Microsoft rebrands Beam as Mixer with more livestreaming features

Microsoft just made it easier for livestreaming gamers to share their gaming content to a wider audience. Their Beam project finally took off the wraps, and it’s now going official under a new name – Mixer.

Over in this Xbox blog post, Matt Salsamendi (co-founder of Beam) announced the name change, along with a bunch of new features. Effectively, the core service remains the same, while the rebranding “represents what we love most about the service….how it brings people together”.

Mixer is a game livestreaming platform made for the Xbox console and Windows 10 Game Bar – it’s designed to let gamers directly livestream their playtime to the Mixer app, and to develop an interactive community for livestreamers and viewers to come together (check their forums if you want to livestream to multiple platforms at the same time). While the idea seems simple, Mixer’s new rebranding also brought forth new features to compete with established livestreaming platforms like Twitch, YouTube Live, and Blizzard Streaming.

The rebranding exercise brought forth a new feature - co-streaming.

The announcement also introduced co-streaming, a feature where up to four streamers can host one large stream together in a split-screen view. The stream host can invite three other friends to join (done within the Mixer app). Fellow co-streamers do not need to play the same game session or game title, and Microsoft believes this allows for a wider variety of content, along with better viewer engagement.

To get viewers watching, the actual Mixer app will have Channel One – a moderated, always-on channel. This preview will act as a content aggregator that hosts a wide variety of genres and updates that allow both first-timers and veterans hit the ground running. For folks on the Xbox Insider Program, they’ll get to beta-test  Mixer Page, a separate landing page found on the Xbox One dashboard.

A new mobile app called Mixer Create also joined the fray. This app will be officially available on both Android OS and iOS, and users can expect to livestream mobile games. However, this will only come in the future, as the app only just started its beta run.

When Mixer was still known as Beam, it was added to Windows 10 (via the Creators Update) and to the Xbox via its Insider Program early this year. The service and community were active since January 2016.

Source: Xbox (blog)

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