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Ninja, one of the internet’s most popular streamers, announced yesterday that he would be moving from Twitch, where he initially grew his now massive following, to exclusively stream on Microsoft’s Mixer streaming service. Ninja’s first Mixer broadcast went live from a station at the Lollapalooza music festival, complete with his sponsored Red Bull refrigerator in the background.
Just as he went live, Ninja’s stream climbed up to around 76k viewers. While this doesn’t quite reach the heights of his Twitch streaming days last year, when viewers could stretch well into the hundred thousands, it is almost double the viewership that Ninja has been getting on Twitch over the last several weeks. For his first drop in Fortnite on his new platform, Ninja landed at Mega Mall, but died just a couple of fights in. After this quick death, his stream dropped to around 66k viewers.
After just a few games though, Ninja found his groove and closed out his first Mixer Victory Royale with a solid 12 elimination game. It’s also worth noting that at this point his stream ballooned to just over 80k viewers, though it dropped back down shortly after when he claimed his second win of the day — this time with 11 eliminations.
Twitch didn’t seem to be affected by Ninja’s move to the new platform in the slightest. At the start of Ninja’s stream, Fortnite had around 130K—150K viewers on Twitch, with most of the game’s biggest streamers enjoying the same numbers they normally would.
Chat was full of Ninja’s own custom emotes, though it lacked the iconic Twitch-exclusive emotes that players have come to know and love. The stream itself seemed pretty choppy on occasion, but between Lollapalooza internet, and the frequent micro-stutters that have so far plagued Fortnite’s newest season, it’s hard to say just what caused the dip in quality.
We don’t know if Mixer will continue to hold greener pastures than Ninja’s previous Twitch streams, his first stream from the platform seems promising for everyone.
