Shocking news made waves in the gaming industry yesterday as Microsoft decided to shut down Mixer and join forces with Facebook.

As of July 22nd, Microsoft is closing its streaming service Mixer and will merge with Facebook Gaming. As far as we know the plan from Microsoft is to have all streamers and partners make the transition over to Facebook Gaming, which will take effect today (June 23rd). Mixer related websites and apps will also begin to start automatically redirecting straight to Facebook Gaming. If you are currently a partner with Mixer you will be assigned partnership status with Facebook Gaming and Facebook Gaming has a Level Up program that will be issued right away to any Mixer streamer who was using the monetization program with Mixer. Along with all the change, any Mixer member who has any outstanding balances or subscriptions will in turn receive a credit in the form of an Xbox gift card. It was very difficult for Mixer to compete with Twitch from the start. Twitch was and still is the best streaming platform for gamers or anyone looking to broadcast. The reach on Twitch was just too much for Mixer to compete against and this is one of the reasons why Microsoft had to shut it down.     Unfortunately, this is going to be a very difficult time for content creators who relied upon Mixer for an income. One of the major aspects of the partnership between Microsoft and Facebook is Microsoft’s Project xCloud. With Microsoft set to potentially launch xCloud later this year, the merger makes sense, seeing as few platforms could accommodate xCloud as well as Facebook. We don’t know the full details on exactly when xCloud will be offered but this could be one of the more lucrative business moves Microsoft has ever pulled off. Only time will tell how this partnership between Microsoft and Facebook will play out, though the future of video game streaming could potentially be moving in the right direction with an alliance between these two powerful companies. Cheers Folks!