Ninja leaves Twitch for Microsoft’s Mixer

Fortnite player and famed streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins announced that he has left Amazon’s streaming service Twitch. As Ninja leaves Twitch, he will now stream exclusively for Microsoft’s competing streaming service, Mixer. Ninja made the announcement via a short tweet with the words “the next chapter,” alongside the address of his new Mixer channel. Immediately after this, how followed up with a second tweet where he talks a bit more about the move.

I have been holding on to this for quite some time,” stated Ninja, “and I’m just super excited to let everyone know. I’ll be streaming on Mixer full-time now and I’m honestly at a loss for words. I’m freaking out in the best ways. I feel like I’m going to get back to the streaming roots.” That said, he then went on to reassure fans  that his streams would remain the same as they were on Twitch.

ALSO: No, Ninja didn’t just say the N-Word

Ninja has over 14 million followers on Twitch. This makes him the biggest streamer on the platform based on follower count. In comparison, his nearest competitor, Counter-Strike: Global Ops streamer Shroud, only has a little over 6 million followers. This, of course is on top of the millions that he’s earned playing Fortnite and other games.

Ninja’s move looks like a coup for Microsoft’s Mixer. It’s likely that the company is banking on Ninja’s fanbase following him onto the platform. Additionally, the move being successful could also lure more famous streamers to jump ship as well.

For the longest time, Twitch has been sees as the dominant streaming service. A recent report by StreamElements stated that the service accounts for 72.2% of all live streaming hours watched. Mixer on the other hand, only accounts for a paltry 3%, behind not just Twitch, but YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming as well. Will Ninja’s move bump Mixer up this totem pole? Only time will tell.