Mixer was able to sign streamers, but it wasn’t able to turn those deals into eyeballs — which is what advertisers want to see. Mixer’s “hours watched” numbers have been continually falling since their height in 2019, according to Streamlabs. Facebook Gaming, on the other hand, has been reeling in more and more viewers, and its “hours watched” metric grew 236 percent from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020.

Xbox is preparing to launch the Xbox Series X this fall, and it’s attempting to build a solid foundation for the next generation of console gaming. Mixer was clearly a weak point. By offloading the upkeep of an entire streaming platform, Microsoft is free to focus on services like Project xCloud, the backbone of Xbox’s cloud-gaming service.

“Gaming is already part of our social fabric, and Project xCloud can take you from discussing a new game — whether it’s a funny in-game moment posted by a friend, an ad, or an ongoing stream — directly to playing it,” Spencer wrote. “In the future, through the power of Xbox Live and Project xCloud, we see there being just one click between ‘I’m watching’ and ‘I’m playing.’”

This sounds similar to plans that Google has laid out for Stadia, its rival cloud-gaming system. As the next generation of console gaming begins, Microsoft is already competing with Google, Amazon, Sony, Nintendo and dozens of other huge companies — but at least in terms of live-streaming, it now has Facebook on its side.