Microsoft’s Beam streaming service has barely been released for the general Xbox One and Windows 10 populace to make use of, and they’re already shifting focus. Instead, it’s now known as Mixer.
Why the change? I mean, Beam makes sense to me, as you beam your game to your viewers, but apparently that name wasn’t cutting it for Microsoft, with co-founder Matt Salsamendi stating that “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.”
The underlying tech is remaining largely the same, with low latency streaming (or at least less than Twitch) built into Microsoft’s platforms, but the Mixer rebrand brings with it some new and clever ideas for streamers.
Co-streaming let’s up to four people stream together, with their streams being combined by Microsoft’s servers, so you could share an entire team of people playing Battlegrounds and let people see all the action. However, you can all be playing different games, allowing for plenty of flexibility.
The Mixer Create Beta app brings personal streaming for iOS and Android users, with streaming of mobile games coming down the line, which will be a boon for those Pokémon Go streamers out there.
In terms of discoverability, Channel One is a curated and moderated stream by Microsoft, running 24/7 to bring a wide variety of different content to you. All of this is built into the Mixer page that’s coming to the Xbox One Dashboard for Insiders today, and rolling out to all users in due course.
I’m still a little confused as to why a rebrand was needed, but there’s lots of interesting and innovative new ideas in Mixer that I’d love to try out some time.
Source: Xbox Wire
TSBonyman
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mixer
MrYd
So someone in 1 or more countries is already using the Beam name for something else, and nobody at MS thought to check that first? After they ran into trouble with Sky before?
Or did they just assume they could chuck some money and/or legal threats around if the same problem happened again?