Microsoft Renames Twitch Competitor To Mixer, Adds Co-Streaming Feature

Microsoft’s Twitch competitor, Beam, has now been renamed to Mixer. In addition to the name change, the company also included a new co-streaming feature that lets up to four players on the PC broadcast on a single livestream.

“This was a tough decision, and not one that we made lightly. But, it was something that we decided on as a team,” Mixer co-founder and engineering lead Matt Salsamendi said in his blog post. “We believe so much in the power of the platform and want to grow it in every major market around the world. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something we could do with the Beam name.”

“We chose Mixer as our new name because it represents what we love most about the service… how it brings people together.”

With Mixer, Microsoft doesn’t want its users to just simply watch live streams of gameplay. Instead, the company wants them to have an interactive experience by having them play along with their favorite streamers. The company used Telltale Games’ Crowd Play feature as one way of making Mixer more of an interactive livestreaming experience.

Crowd Play lets livestream audiences on Mixer vote on what’s going to happen with a game’s narrative. The feature is already available on “Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series,” “The Walking Dead: A New Frontier” and “Batman: The Telltale Series.”

As part of the rebrand, Microsoft has also added Co-Streaming for Mixer, which is now available starting today. This new feature will let four streamers on a PC to broadcast on one single live stream page.

To be clear, the Co-Streaming feature will simply bring in all four separate streams into one split-screen view. The new experience will also include a centralized chatroom just on the right side of the live stream.

What’s really interesting here is that all four players won’t even have to play the same game in order to use Mixer’s Co-Streaming feature. It also doesn’t matter what device the four streamers are playing on.

The feature is currently only available for PC, but Microsoft says that it will arrive for the Xbox One “in the coming weeks.”

Mixer is currently available for the PC and Xbox One, but Microsoft is also planning on adding the same features to its the Mixer Create app for iOS and Android devices, which currently only lets people watch live streams, according to Polygon.

“In the future, you could imagine streaming ‘Pokémon Go’ on your mobile device, through Mixer, and hunting with viewers,” Salsamendi said. “Once mobile gameplay streaming launches, you’ll be able to join a co-stream with friends who are broadcasting on PC, console or other mobile devices.”

Microsoft has also added a new always-on, moderated channel for Mixer called Channel One. This will highlight a variety of content including title releases, livestream events, esports updates and more.

There’s also a new Mixer Page for the Xbox One dashboard that’s available now for Xbox insiders. The page will show the most popular streams that are being broadcast through Mixer.

Microsoft also announced that it will be live streaming its Xbox E3 briefing on Mixer from June 11-15. The E3 briefing will also be streamed in 4K Ultra HD, and Microsoft promises to give out special digital bonuses for those who watch the livestream on Mixer.

Lastly, Microsoft has set up a Mixer NYC Studio in the company’s flagship store in New York. Microsoft says that it’s designed for live audience, competitive and community gaming events.