Microsoft’s Xbox Closes Mixer Live Streaming, Partners With Facebook Gaming

Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT) Xbox division has decided to shut down down its Mixer operations, a live streaming tool for games, and instead has teamed up with Facebook (FB) for users to switch to its Facebook Gaming.

Xbox announced in a blog post that starting on July 22, all Mixer sites and applications will redirect users to Facebook Gaming.

“It became clear that the time needed to grow our own live streaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer,” Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said in the blog post. “This is a key part of a broader effort that Xbox and Facebook Gaming are embarking on, bringing new experiences and opportunities to the entire world of gaming.”

Every month, more than 700 million people play a game, watch a gaming video or interact in a gaming group on Facebook. For Facebook Gaming’s creators, this brings the ability to partner closely with the Xbox ecosystem, including future opportunities around Xbox Game Pass, and Project xCloud.

Shares in Microsoft rose 2.8% to $200.57 on Monday taking the year-to-date gain to 27% as the tech giant benefited from increased demand for remote services during the coronavirus pandemic.

Five-star analyst Brent Thill at Jefferies recently reiterated a Buy rating on the stock with a $200 price target.

“The biggest beneficiary of the new work from home environment is in the productivity suite and especially Microsoft Teams, which has seen a large spike in demand,” Thill wrote in a note to investors.

Jefferies added that Microsoft’s cloud-computing service Azure, its gaming systems, and Windows have also seen rising demand increases amid the work-from-home shift.

Over the past three months, Microsoft has scored 22 Buy ratings versus 1 Hold rating adding up to a Strong Buy consensus. In light of the recent rally, the average price target of $206.90 implies a mere 3.2% upside potential over the coming year. (See Microsoft stock analysis on TipRanks)