Microsoft Acquires Beam Game Streaming Service, Embracing Alternative To Amazon's Twitch (geekwire.com) 29
An anonymous reader shares a GeekWire report: Microsoft's Xbox group announced Thursday that it has acquired Seattle-based interactive game streaming service Beam, bringing the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant into an arena dominated by Amazon's Twitch. Microsoft said in a blog post the deal will help make Xbox more social and interactive. Beam launched in January, with a goal of giving people watching gamers the ability to participate in the experience. Viewers can affect gameplay by presenting new challenges and quests using visual controls.
Avoid this service by this big nasty company. (Score:3)
Go with us as a refreshing alternative. We are just as big nasty. But it is an alternative.
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Go with us as a refreshing alternative. We are just as big nasty. But it is an alternative.
Unfortunately it's going to take a big company to mount any serious competition to Twitch. A big company other than Google who can't be bothered to no half-ass new products anymore.
Making XBox more social? (Score:2)
Somehow I can't believe an antisocial company can pull something like this off.
Re:Good Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
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In-app streaming is garbage, get an AVerMedia Gamer Portable
The first thing on the product description page [avermedia.com] is a boxed, all-caps notice:
Because video games are audiovisual works, their output is protected by copyright. Nintendo used copyright against MLG in 2010 [majorleaguegaming.com], and other publishers have the right to use it again in the future [arstechnica.com]. Even with publishers that are willing to license their games for streaming, such as Nintendo nowadays [arstechnica.com], a royalty for the game itself is a cost that esport leagues have and p
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Virtually every single major streamer that streams from XB One or PS4 (or other consoles) does so using a capture card. Most use OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) to overlay other stuff onto the stream. Often a webcam view, alerts when they get new subs or donations, and other miscellaneous stuff.
Very few of the well-viewed streamers stream directly from the console.
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Do the major video game consoles use HDCP on their output?
Yes, but you can disable it for games, why did you not know this already? Do you not know how to google?
http://manuals.playstation.net... [playstation.net]
I know OUYA does, and in my opinion, inability to share gameplay videos was a significant part of what caused OUYA to fizzle out.
Significant? In what fantasy world do you live in. The real reason Ouya failed is that the masses don't want a microconsole to play sucky android games and emulators.
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Then they can make some copyright / eula / dmca claims.
Re: Good Luck (Score:2)
Beam has already made a news in the game streaming community, for one reason and one reason only. Stream latency, beam had negligible latency of pushing the stream from ingest servers through their network and back out to the streaming clients, This is why interactivity works better on beam (it exists on twitch too, see "twitch plays Pokémon") . Unfortunately there is an issue with this, the low latency is due to low throughout compared to twitch which at any one time is handling thousands of str
Re:Good Luck (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google / YouTube can't make a dent in Twitch what's Microsoft gonna do?
To be honest, and not saying MS will succeed here, but Google has been half-assing new products for a few years now. It's like they have a severe case of corporate ADHD. I don't think we can use Google failing at something as a valid comparison anymore. They are not the Google they were in the early 2000's.
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Yes, but really, YouTube Live truly isn't that bad as a delivery platform. As a matter of fact - it seems to be catching on relatively well EXCEPT for video game streaming. People are just used to going to Twitch for that.
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Yes, but really, YouTube Live truly isn't that bad as a delivery platform. As a matter of fact - it seems to be catching on relatively well EXCEPT for video game streaming. People are just used to going to Twitch for that.
Youtube Live isn't bad but they did that half-hearted game streaming launch last year (gaming.youtube.com) and it so far has been a huge flop. They just kind of threw it out there and forgot about it. Twitch needs a real competitor. Google fumbled it. Microsoft is really about the last hope for one now. God help us all.
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I stream but rarely, but when I do, I tend to stream to Google. Why?
The streams are archived youtube style. Twitch deletes videos after 14 days for free users.
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It takes a LOT of TPS reports, pointless memos, impotent meetings and middle management to make come about...
Now, Beam can be an Acronym (Score:2)
This message brought to you by the "Bing Is Not Google" department.
super low-latencyvideos (Score:2, Informative)
A better summary from The Next Web (No affiliate)
Microsoft is getting into the livestreaming game with its latest purchase. The company has picked up Beam, a six-month-old service that competes with Twitch and YouTube gaming.
Beam’s key advantage over the big players is its super low-latencyvideos, allowing users to interact with streamers in something that approaches real time (instead of the usual 10 second delay). That makes streaming more of an active back-and-forth with broadcasters, adding an int