Ninja announces exclusive partnership to stream on Mixer

Twitch superstar Tyler ‘Ninja‘ Blevins announced a partnership with Microsoft’s streaming platform Mixer, meaning he will be leaving Twitch.

Ninja dropped the bombshell news in a bizarre video on August 1 where he announced he’ll be exclusively streaming on Mixer, in a press conference with himself.

He took questions from the crowd who were all versions of himself where he answered questions about what it means for his hair and gaming career.

The partnership begins immediately which means he will no longer be on his Twitch channel and fans will need to follow him to Mixer if they want to keep with his livestreams. His sub button has since been removed from Twitch.

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Mixer is Twitch’s closest competitor but it doesn’t really come close to the viewership but perhaps this switch could be the shot in the arm that Microsoft needs.

Exclusive streaming partnerships have become more commonplace with Felix ‘PewDiePie‘ Kjellberg announcing all of his streams will be on DLive instead of YouTube.

Whether fans will be following Ninja over Mixer remains to be seen. He was by far the most followed Twitch channel with over 14 million followers and averaged close to 30,000 viewers per stream.

What will be interesting to follow is how many streamers decide to begin their streaming career on Mixer now that one of the most famous creators is there.

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It didn’t seem to have much of an impact on Dlive’s growth but that was a newer platform versus an established on in Mixer.

Twitch gave a statement to The Verge about how they feel about his switch.

“We’ve loved watching Ninja on Twitch over the years and are proud of all that he’s accomplished for himself and his family, and the gaming community,” Twitch told The Verge. “We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.”

Ninja spoke about what the move to Mixer meant for him in a follow-up to his announcement.

“I’m honestly at a loss for words,” he said. “I’m really just excited to just finally… I feel like I’m gonna get back to the streaming roots and that’s what it’s all about.”

If you go over to Ninja’s Mixer channel right now, you’re able to claim your first-month subscription for free as part of a promo.

Ninja is streaming from Lollapalooza on August 2 so his debut stream has potential to be one for the record books.