It seems, tech giant Microsoft has decided to take over the world of e-sports. Well, its latest purchase does aim towards it.
Microsoft on Thursday bought Beam, a popular livestreaming service that also allows its users an opportunity to collectively control and affect gameplay as it happens in real-time. Though both the parties have till now officially not given out any terms and details about the deal, Beam’s 18 year old founder Matt Salsamendi did blog that after the acquisition Beam will be made part of Microsoft’s Xbox team.
For the people unaware about the online video world, Livestreaming video across YouTube has in itself acquired a cottage industry status. Streamers stream about a number of topics ranging from fashion to sports to technology etc.
Microsoft is said to greatly benefit from the deal as its Xbox One and Xbox app provided people only the feature of recording game clips of different resolutions and lengths, and then share them. But, there’s nothing that Microsoft offered that allowed users the opportunity to actually live stream games. Seeing that this was becoming a much popular alternative with users than to actually spend money to buy the game, Microsoft had to act fast and gladly, it did.
Beam functions almost similar to a number of livestreaming services currently in the market; the users can browse through a games list, which shows the games that are currently live playing. The users can follow the game that they’re interested in and contribute to it through their comments in a chat box present to the right of the screen.
In a statement given by Chad Gibson, partner group Manager for Xbox Live, he said, that his entire team at Xbox is extremely excited about the convergence between playing and watching, and they aim to provide gamers with the choice and freedom to have great multiplayer experiences across all of Beam’s platforms.
According to him, the acquisition will be a great plus for gamers as they will have the opportunity to enjoy the games they want, with the people they want, and on the devices they want.
