Fortnite streamer Ninja announced on Thursday that he would be ditching Twitch for Mixer. Already, the Microsoft streaming platform has witnessed a sporadic interest topping the charts and search engine traffic. This is a major concern for Twitch, which seems to have hit saturation after suffering a 2% decline in streams.
eSports law firm ESG Law cofounder Bryce Blum posted a screenshot on Twitter earlier today showing Microsoft’s Mixer on top of the App Store top free charts. This was above YouTube and Gmail, which came in at second and third, respectively. Blum also included another screenshot of Google trends chart. It showed that Microsoft’s streaming platform, Mixer, was trending at the time of Ninja’s announcement.
Born Richard Tyler Blevins, Ninja is among the popular names in eSports. The 28-year-old American is the most followed streamer on Twitch, with over 14.7 million followers by the time of writing. Records show that the Fortnite streamer averaged 50,000 viewers every week, making him among the highest earners in the streaming industry.
Even though Microsoft has not revealed the details of the partnership, it is an exclusive deal. That means Ninja will be streaming for Mixer only. But that doesn’t mean his earning would drop. Last year, the streamer was estimated to be making a cool $500,000 per month, which is quite a fortune.
To ensure Ninja comes on board with most of his followers, Microsoft announced a free one-month subscription to Ninja’s channel for all users. This is among the reasons that have made Mixer top the charts. Already, Ninja’s Mixer channel is up and running and already boasts over 230,000 followers, and the numbers keep rising. The first streaming session is scheduled for today during the Lollapalooza festival.
“As I look at the next step in my career, achieving bigger goals in the gaming industry with Mixer will allow me to have the perfect balance of opportunities and success,” Ninja said “My roots as a gamer started with Halo, so working with Microsoft and coming over to Mixer felt like a natural next step.”
The assault on Twitch is a clear indication that Microsoft is keen on taking its streaming service to greater heights. According to Streamlabs, Mixer recorded over 119.1 million hours of streams between April and June. This is a 357% increase compared to last year and 32% increase since the previous quarter.
However, Twitch is still the bomb recording over 2.7 billion hours of streams. Also, it remains with many other top streamers including Tfue, Myth, and Shroud.
