It looks like Xbox One users will be seeing Twitch integration sooner than we thought. In an interview with Associated Press, Twitch CEO Emmet Shear announced that the Xbox One will be receiving a host of Twitch functionality on March 11, alongside Titanfall, the Xbox One and PC exclusive title that's been all the rage lately.
The PlayStation 4 launched with Twitch functionality in November, allowing users to broadcast their gameplay on the service. Up until now, the Xbox One's video sharing has been limited to uploading gameplay clips, as the Twitch app has been in development for some time and wasn't available at the console's launch. But with patience comes reward, as it seems like the Xbox One Twitch app will go one step further by providing more features than the PlayStation 4 app allows. Shear tells Associated Press that the Twitch service will be completely integrated with Microsoft's console, as far as letting viewers join the party of the broadcaster.
"It's exciting because we've never had the ability to broadcast from a console like this with such a deep level of integration. The concept of being able to join a broadcasters' party is really cool, and it's another step in the direction of interacting more closely with broadcasters,” Shear told AP.
The PlayStation 4 Twitch app was developed by Sony, rather than Twitch itself. Shear's comments suggest that's why the Xbox One app is more feature heavy than its previous console application. Despite this, Shear hopes to see these features come to other devices as well.
"For us, we thought that was too limiting for what our fans would want. Our fans really want the full next-gen service, so that's why we decided to take our time, do it right and have it come out in this fashion,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's vice president of marketing and strategy for Xbox.
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Twitch has seen impressive numbers come out of the console audience since the PlayStation 4 launched in November with its own Twitch app. According to Shear, 1.7 Million broadcasts have been done through Sony's console, with Twitch seeing 20% of its broadcasts come from the PlayStation 4 alone, last month.
With the launch of the Xbox One Twitch app on March 11, I wouldn't be surprised to see Twitch's console broadcast numbers go up. Let's just hope that their servers can handle it, because as a semi-frequent streamer, I've noticed that Twitch can be a bit wonky at times.
