Both Microsoft and Sony have decided that streaming video content is the way of the future and nowhere was it more apparent than on the Playstation 4, which has a "Share" button built right into its controller. The ease of streaming your gameplay was enticing to a ton of gamers, especially for console gamers who have never had an easy way to do that, and we just found out how popular it's been.
Twitch has today announced that in the month of November it grew from 600,000 total broadcasters to over 700,000. That jump is wholly attributable to the Playstation 4, which didn't even launch until November 15th. That's massive. According to Twitch Playstation 4 users broadcast 10 percent of all of the content on its platform, with broadcasters accounting for 16 percent of their total user base.
That seems impressive but Sony has sold more than 2.1 million units so far and is showing no signs of slowing down, so there's plenty of room for Twitch to grow even further.
Of course, there still remains to be seen if these new broadcasters stick with the service, especially when PC gamers are getting many more subscribers to their channels. Twitch on PC is another thing entirely, with carefully gaming tournaments and leagues gaining thousands of viewers. It'll be interesting to see if console gamers can set up similar events in the future.
But there's the usual growing pains, sometimes literally, as Twitch had to remind people that it's against their terms of service to broadcast lewd material, although plenty of people are doing just that. They recently had an issue with the Playroom app and people abusing the service (and the broadcasters), since streaming that game allows viewers to see into your home. Twitch initially tried to remind people that they needed to be broadcasting game content or at least talking about games to set up a broadcast, but reports that an unconscious woman was stripped naked on a stream led to Twitch giving up and banning the game entirely from the service.
But besides from a few incidents most people seem to be enjoying the service quite a bit. It's growing at an enormous rate and giving gamers another way to interact with each other and show off their skills. Playstation 4 users- do you broadcast content or watch other broadcasts? Let us know below in the comments!
