Microsoft’s livestreaming service Mixer has so far been pretty successful, thanks to its integration with Xbox on a very fundamental level. That said, it does seem to lag behind the 900 lb gorilla in the room in this arena, Twitch- since there are some features Twitch has that Mixer does not.
That will be fixed starting this year. Microsoft has confirmed that the option to directly buy a game or DLC from Mixer will be added to the service this year; initially, this feature will be limited to purchases from Xbox One and Windows 10, but that may change in the future. Tipping, which, again, is a mainstay of Twitch, will also be added to the service this year.
Of course, there is a long way to go before Mixer has feature parity with Twitch- but it is good to see Microsoft continuing to improve the service. We’ll see whether it ever seriously challenges Twitch’s monopoly in the future (even YouTube could not do that).