Fortnite streaming star Ninja dumps Twitch for rival platform Mixer

Fortnite streaming superstar Tyler "Ninja" Blevins on Thursday left Amazon-owned Twitch, telling fans they will only be able to find him on rival gameplay streaming platform Mixer.

Blevins announced the move on Twitter, posting a video of a faux press conference at which he appeared to take questions from himself in disguises.

"I'll be streaming on Mixer full time now," Blevins said on Twitter.

"I am freaking out, in the best of ways. I feel like I am going to get back to the streaming roots, and that is what it is all about."

He promised his millions of fans that his broadcasts would remain the same, just that now they would be exclusively available at Microsoft's Mixer social platform for gamers.

The move is a win for Microsoft, luring viewers to Mixer and playing into the technology company's efforts to bolster its gaming community.

Microsoft's Xbox line competes with PlayStation consoles fielded by Sony. The rivals are both maneuvering to adapt to video game play being hosted as a service in the internet cloud.

Blevins last year told sports multimedia group ESPN his gaming netted him a monthly revenue in seven figures and boasted legions of Twitch followers. The video of his pretend press briefing had logged more than 5.4 million views by Thursday evening in California.

Online battle royale game Fortnite is a global sensation, with entertaining play and commentary a hit with online viewers. Studios making games for consoles or personal computers see value in building communities of loyal players who continually engage with titles, instead of finishing them and putting them down.

"If you want to maintain a base of subscribers, engagement is key," Hugues Ouvrard, head of Xbox in France, told AFP at a video game trade show earlier this year.

Microsoft has revealed plans for a next-generation console, but said that cloud gaming is a core of its strategy. Contenders in the game-streaming arena will need content, cloud capacity and a community of players.

Google plans to launch its video game streaming service Stadia in 14 countries starting in November. The new gaming platform aims for a Netflix-style subscription that enables players to access games on any device, powered by the internet cloud.

This could disrupt the huge gaming industry by allowing users to avoid consoles and game software on disc or download.

Microsoft is building on its Xbox success with an xCloud service. Eyes are on Amazon to see whether it will leverage its leading AWS cloud business and popular Twitch gaming community to host titles online itself.