Microsoft's game streaming service, Mixer, is celebrating its first anniversary today, and it's doing it in style. Along with recapping its growth to more than 10 million monthly active users and a 400 percent increase in partners over the past year, the service is also unveiling some new goodies for the whole community.
First up is a refreshed Mixer.com experience on the web, for both desktop and mobile. For the most part, the experience still feels familiar if you're already an active Mixer viewer. However, Mixer says it has used the refresh to make it easier to find streamers playing your favorite games "or broadcasting in the creative communities you care about most."
Elements of the refresh will be available soon to Mixer partners and Pro subscribers. Once they are available, Mixer says that you can opt-in to see them via the "Site Version" dialog in your account settings menu. Simply toggle on the "Feature/UI-Refresh" option, and you'll see what's new. The refresh will be slowly rolling out in waves over the summer.
Perhaps most exciting, for those who like Mixer's interactivity, anyway, is that the service is adding more ways for developers to add interactive elements with MixPlay. Mixer explains:
With MixPlay, we've added to the arsenal of tools developers have to create next-generation streaming experiences. Instead of just adding buttons below the stream, developers can now create MixPlay experiences on top of streams, in panels on the side of video, as widgets around video or as free-floating overlays, all while completely matching the look and feel of their games or streamed content. The entire video window is now the developer's canvas, and all that's needed is familiarity with standard web technology like HTML and JavaScript.
That covers most of the big stuff, but there are some other little things Mixer is doing to celebrate its first year. Rainbow Six Siege is now a part of the HypeZone, so you'll be able to easily find streamers in late round, overtime, and match point situations with the HypeZoneRainbow6 channel. Those who use Mixer's Direct Purchase feature will also get $5 in Microsoft Store credit for making purchases for a limited time. Lastly, all Mixer users who log into their account between May 24 and May 28 and reach level 10, will receive up to 90 days of Mixer Pro and a free channel subscription.
All of these new features and promotions follow news today that Mixer Create is getting co-streaming and Lighstream support. Both features are now available in the beta apps for iOS and Android.
E3 2021 schedule: All the biggest announcements so far
We’ve rounded up all the biggest announcements from E3 2021 so far, coupled with the full schedule of conferences and live streams coming up next.
The best games of E3 2021
There have been dozens of amazing games shown off across the E3 2021 season, and it can be hard to keep up with everything. To that end, we've decided to round up the best trailers from the various showcases.
These great Thunderbolt 3 docks turn your laptop into a desktop
Looking to make the most of your super-fast Thunderbolt 3 connection? The CalDigit TS3 Plus is our top pick thanks to plenty of ports and solid construction, but there are a bunch of other options that might better suit your needs.
Buy one of these gaming PCs to play Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a demanding game, and it needs quite the PC to run it comfortably. If you don't have a PC yet dedicated to gaming, you'll want to pick one from our list of top pre-built computers to put you right in the cockpit.