Originally, Twitch streaming was possible on the Xbox platforms up until 2017, when Microsoft was developing and trying to push their in-house streaming platform Mixer, which got shut down in 2020. Through a blog post, Xbox explains how to stream on the livestreaming platform directly from the console. An active Twitch account connected via the Xbox is required, and what is interesting is that players can use their existing 1080p webcam with YUY2 or NV12 formats, along with the option to set bitrate.

To read more on how to stream on the platform via your Xbox consoles, head on to the official blog post by Xbox. While this news is certainly not as big as the slew of acquisitions Microsoft has been making, this is certainly great news for the console’s fans, especially seeing as PlayStation has had this feature for a long time.

Twitch believes that the leak was in large parts due to a server misconfiguration error, which hackers spotted and took advantage of, as written in an official blog post. As a cautionary measure, all streaming keys have been reset. Twitch has also clarified that personal data such as credit card numbers are still safe, so users shouldn’t be worried too much.

Twitch is still actively investigating the hack, and more details are sure to come to light. Many analysts and experts have claimed that this might be one of the biggest hacks in recent memory, and the full extent of the hack’s impact isn’t still known.

The leak also contains source code for Vapor, which is an unreleased competitor to Steam – currently in development at Amazon Game Studios. Users are recommended to turn on two-factor authentication in order to secure their accounts. A series of tweets has also revealed the names and payouts to Twitch’s top creators, which you can check out below.

Twitch is reportedly aware of this hack, and has confirmed so in a tweet. It’s believed that the data may have been stolen as recently as this Monday. The perpetrators have also revealed the intent behind this leak, so as to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space” because “their community is a disgusting toxic cesspool”. What measures will ultimately be taken is unknown for now, and users are advised to proceed with caution on any matters associated with the platform.

We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us.

— Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021

The gross payouts of the top 100 highest-paid Twitch streamers from August 2019 until October 2021: pic.twitter.com/3Lj9pb2aBl

— KnowSomething (@KnowS0mething) October 6, 2021

F.lux

Gaming for long hours on a PC can take a toll on your eyes so it’s good to have programs like F.lux. It automatically adjusts the color temperature of your display based on location and time of day to help reduce eye strain. As day turns to night, it will gradually shift to a warmer color and then back when the sun rises (though you can also invert times if you work during the night).You can also choose from a variety of presets or adjust color temperature manually based on your needs.

The price of a tier one subscription on Twitch has long been $4.99 no matter where you’ve lived. Twitch has roughly translated that cost to other currencies, but it’s generally meant that folks in other countries have paid a lot more for a month’s subscription, or that the price is abnormally high given the cost of living in that area.

Twitch is finally addressing the issue with local subscription pricing to try and level things out. “First up will be Mexico and Turkey on May 20, 2021, which are home to creators and viewers who have been passionate about this change for quite some time.” In the new system, a tier one sub will be priced at 48 pesos (around $2.42) and 9.90 Turkish lira (around $1.19). Countries in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe will follow later this year.

The reason for the change is a huge discrepancy between subscribers in the US and everywhere else. Twitch believes the price of subscriptions are to blame. “The percentage of active users in Europe or Asia who support creators with a subscription is roughly 50% lower relative to North America. In Latin America, it’s nearly 80% lower.”

While it’s good for subscribers, Twitch anticipates pushback from streamers who might see the change impact their bottom line. “Twitch will cover 100% of baseline channel and Prime sub revenue (if needed) for three calendar months, including the month of the price change. After that, we will slowly decrease incentive payments by 25% every three months over the following nine months, totaling a 12-month period of providing revenue adjustment incentives.” It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it good to see Twitch fixing an ongoing issue.

Riot Games is no stranger to those high Twitch views. It’s League of Legends behemoth has consistently been one of the most watched games on the service, and it seems they are doing it again, big time, with their currently in beta hero shooter, Valorant. The game is being watched, alright, and being watched a lot.

As reported via StreamElements, the game was watched over 334 million hours via the Twitch streaming service last month. That’s three times the amount of Riot’s other game, League of Legends, and four times that of the almighty Fortnite. That is only on Twitch, so that number doesn’t include other streaming avenues such as Mixer, YouTube and Facebook Gaming. Overall, streaming services were up almost 100% year over year as well, boasting everything at the top of the charts to some degree.

Obviously, at least some of those numbers came because so many people entered into quarantine due to COVID-19, but it’s still very impressive and probably bodes well for the full game when it does finally launch. Valorant is in beta now for PC, with no release date set for the game’s full launch.

Riot Games’ Valorant is currently in closed beta with only certain players having access. Others had a chance of joining by watching certain streamers on Twitch and winning keys in giveaways. To that end, the 5v5 tactical shooter had 1.7 million viewers on the platform, notching up 34 million hours in its first day.

Not only does that break the record for single-day viewership on Twitch but it was slightly behind the viewership numbers of the 2019 League of Legends World Championship Finals. This is despite server issues that cropped up on the first day of the closed beta. Said issues seem to be ironed out for the time being though.

Valorant is currently in development for PC and will release as a free to play title in Summer 2020. Though the development team is open to releasing on other platforms, it’s currently focused on the PC release. Stay tuned for more details on the shooter in the coming months.

It’s not entirely unusual for a game, particularly one that’s highly anticipated, to spike in the Twitch views for a few days. But it seems that the latest game from Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding, has really blown the hinges off that door, as it managed to double the amount of views of the most constant highest streamed game in the land.

At one point, Death Stranding had over 182,000 viewers on the popular service. That puts it at almost double the current viewership for League of Legends, which is consistently the most streamed game on the service. Of course, this is likely to change quickly, especially since Death Stranding is a single player game with, as of now, no planned expansions or ongoing content, but it really goes to show the name power of Kojima and the hype surrounding this title that it managed to reach such a high number, even if it’ll only last a brief period.

Death Stranding is available now for PlayStation 4, and will launch in 2020 for PC. The PC version of the game actually just went up for pre-order, which you can read all about through here.

Despite nearly being cancelled in its early development, Fortnite has continued on as one of the juggernauts of modern gaming. It’s penetrated popular culture in a way few games can ever hope to, and has been a continuous success for Epic Games. However, it is on the decline a bit when it comes to revenue and, as it turns out, on views as well, and it might just be taking Twitch down a tad with it.

As per Streamlabs and Newzoo’s Q2 2019 report, Fortnite‘s viewership has taken a decent dip. It’s still being watched a lot, at 294 hours of content viewed, but that’s down over 10 hours from the previous quarter, and has shown a steady decline since Q1 of 2018, which is when the game peaked. In fact, according to their research, Fortnite is no longer the most-watched game on Twitch- it’s again back to Riot Games’ League of Legends.

Twitch itself also saw a drop. It remained at the top of streaming services still, but saw a 2% decrease and had overall 55 million less hours of viewed content compared to last quarter.

Of course, while none of this is necessarily significant as it stands now, it does shows a continued trend. Both Fortnite and Twitch aren’t going away anytime soon, but down the road? Only time can tell.

Apex Legends has been doing remarkably well. Not only does it have millions of players, but it has taken Twitch by storm too. And if you thought its flare up on the Twitch charts was just temporary, well it seems like you might have been wrong. Rather, the game seems to be moving from strength to strength.

Twitch tracker Gamoloco reports on Twitter that Apex Legends was viewed for a cumulative 8.4 million hours on February 12. This beats the previous recorded high of 7.2 million hours viewed on Twitch in a single day by Fortnite, during its Season 5 launch last year. Gamoloco attributes the incredible viewership on February 12 on Respawn’s “Twitch Rivals” event which was held on that day.

Assuming that Apex Legends maintains this kind of growth and popularity, we could actually see it being a legitimate threat—even if to a small degree—to Fortnite. It’s clear that EA’s decision to rely on it for this quarter was a good one, at any rate.

After you have read the infographic below, you won't be surprised to learn @PlayApex has recorded the best launch ever on @Twitch.#BattleRoyale #Viewerships #Impact pic.twitter.com/yJ7pQ3MDum

— GAMOLOCO (@Gamoloco) February 13, 2019