Mixer

The $100 million assault on Twitch

Shut down
19902026

Mixer was Microsoft's game streaming platform, built on the sub-second-latency startup Beam it bought in 2016. Microsoft spent heavily on exclusive deals with Ninja and Shroud, failed to move their audiences, and shut Mixer on 22 July 2020, handing its users to Facebook Gaming.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2016
  2. 5 January 2016 Launch
    Beam launches

    Sub-second latency streaming with interactive viewer controls.

  3. 11 August 2016 Acquisition
    Microsoft acquires Beam

    The platform is wired into Xbox and Windows.

  4. 2017
  5. 25 May 2017 Rebrand
    Beam becomes Mixer

    A trademark dispute forces the new name.

  6. 2019
  7. 1 August 2019 Incident
    Ninja signs an exclusive deal

    A reported ~$30 million move; his viewership falls roughly 90%.

  8. 24 October 2019 Incident
    Shroud follows

    More money, same result: audiences stay on Twitch.

  9. 2020
  10. 22 June 2020 Shutdown announced
    Microsoft pulls out

    A Facebook Gaming partnership replaces the platform.

  11. 22 July 2020 Shutdown
    Mixer shuts down

    All URLs redirect to Facebook Gaming.

The site through time

Browse mixer.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Beam Interactive 2016–2016 Founded Founded by Matt Salsamendi and James Boehm
Microsoft 2016–2020 Acquisition, undisclosed Rebranded Mixer in 2017, shut in 2020

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Microsoft said "the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision" and closed Mixer on 22 July 2020, redirecting users to Facebook Gaming.

Our analysis: Microsoft bought the audience instead of building it, paying Ninja and Shroud reported eight-figure sums to move to a platform their viewers did not follow them to. The technology was better than Twitch; the network effect was not for sale.

History [edit]

Faster than Twitch, and it did not matter

Beam launched in January 2016 with a genuine technical advantage: FTL streaming, with latency under a second, against Twitch's ten to twenty. Viewers could react while things were happening, and interactive controls let audiences vote on or even manipulate a streamer's game in real time. Microsoft bought it in August 2016 and rebranded it Mixer in 2017, wiring it into Xbox and Windows 10.

Then came the chequebook. In August 2019 Microsoft signed Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, the biggest streamer in the world, in a deal reported around $30 million, then Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek and others. Ninja's viewership dropped by roughly 90% on the new platform; his fans stayed on Twitch, where their friends, clips and habits already lived.

Handed over

By mid-2020 Mixer still held low single-digit market share against Twitch and YouTube. On 22 June 2020 Microsoft announced it was shutting the service in a month and partnering with Facebook Gaming instead; on 22 July 2020 every Mixer URL redirected to Facebook. The stars were released from their contracts (and reportedly kept their money), most going back to Twitch. Phil Spencer's public reasoning became the industry's summary of the whole episode: the community could not be grown fast enough to matter.

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Sources [edit]

  1. Microsoft Is Shutting Down Mixer and Partnering With Facebook Gaming Slashdot 22 June 2020 [archived]
  2. Microsoft Announces Shutdown of Mixer Gaming Platform Social Media Today 23 June 2020 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).