Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Microsoft Buys Interactive Game Streaming Startup

posted by janrinok on Sunday August 14 2016, @10:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the bigger-borg dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Microsoft said it is bolstering its Xbox arsenal with the purchase of a startup specializing in letting people join in the fun while watching live-streamed game play.

Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of the deal to buy Seattle-based Beam, which puts an interactive spin on the hot trend of video games being spectator sports.

"With Beam, you don't just watch your favorite streamer play, you play along with them," Xbox Live partner group program manager Chad Gibson said in a blog post.

For example, Beam can be used to let viewers assign missions, summon adversaries, or select virtual gear in games being streamed online by broadcasters.

Beam, which launched in January of this year, will become part of the team at Microsoft devoted to the technology titan's Xbox consoles.

"As part of Xbox, we'll be able to scale faster than we've ever been able to before," Beam co-founder and chief executive Matt Salsamendi said in an online post.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Microsoft Buys Interactive Game Streaming Startup | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 13 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @12:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @12:26AM (#388022)

    I think that this is more "astute societal observation" than it is troll...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @12:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @12:50AM (#388027)

    ... angry old man yells at kids to get off lawn ...

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday August 15 2016, @01:00AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 15 2016, @01:00AM (#388029) Journal

      But it does seem that gamers have the thinnest of skins, pasty, pimply, tender skins.

      • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday August 15 2016, @06:10PM

        by Hyperturtle (2824) on Monday August 15 2016, @06:10PM (#388300)

        No kidding.

        If they can't press the "ultra" settings preset with their celeron processor and integrated intel video, they seem to scream bloody murder on most forums that let them vent such frustrations. "Move the slider or use something besides 1080? unacceptable! this game is badly optimized it sucks!"

        When fallout 4 came out, the steam forums were pretty hilarious in regards to people that so badly wanted to play on the best settings possible, but didn't have a PC that could--and as such, the game sucked.

        There are always wiser or mature kids that show up from time to time. I guess it has always been like that, just like how the users outnumber the techies to a significant degree. It seems more pronounced nowadays, maybe that is also a reason as to the popularity of a lot of the things that techies generally never cared about...