Microsoft on Thursday (August 11, 2016) announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Seattle-based live streaming company Beam for an undisclosed amount.
Beam is a video game streaming service that lets users influence and interact with a video game that is being streamed by another player. Chad Gibson, a partner group program manager at Xbox Live, wrote in a blog post that bringing Beam into the Xbox family supports their current commitment of making Xbox Live more social and fun.
Gibson cited the Microsoft-owned Minecraft as well-suited for Beam because users can play along with the streamer instead of just watching it.
Meanwhile, the acquisition will provide Beam the resources of Microsoft’s Xbox team to continue building its product. Beam CEO Matt Salsamendi wrote in his blog post that they will continue to operate even as his team merge into the Xbox engineering group.
(Photo Source: techcrunch.com)
