Twitch has waited very patiently to arrive on the Xbox One. Come March 11, that wait will be well worth it, as Twitch and Xbox will become ‘one’ (see what I did there).
According to the Associated Press, Twitch – a live streaming service with 45 million views a month – will be a fully integrated experience for Xbox One owners when Titanfall releases. Emmett Shear, co-founder and CEO of Twitch said this morning:
“It’s complete integration… It’s exciting because we’ve never had the ability to broadcast from a console like this with such a deep level of integration. The concept of being able to join a broadcasters’ party is really cool, and it’s another step in the direction of interacting more closely with broadcasters.”
In a little jab towards Sony, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s VP of marketing and strategy for Xbox, had this to say when comparing their service to the PS4’s limited Twitch streaming:
“That’s a very certain type of experience… For us, we thought that was too limiting for what our fans would want. Our fans really want the full next-gen service, so that’s why we decided to take our time, do it right and have it come out in this fashion”
According to Shear in speaking of the PS4, more than 1.7 million streams have been broadcast through it since the console’s Nov.15 launch.
I’m sure with the Xbox One and Titanfall, we will see similar numbers for Xbox users. One can only hope, considering the PS4 has sold 4.2 million vs. the Xbox One’s 3 million since their respective launches.
More visibility using Twitch can’t hurt the console. What do you think, is this something you would use? Does the capacity at which you can access the stream sound appealing to you? Does this sell you on the console itself? Sound off in the comments below.
[UPDATE] Hours after posting this wonderful news, Xbox.com has a full explanation of everything the new Twitch app. This includes the use of Kinect to start the streaming, accompanied by the ability to chat through the same peripheral.
