Ninja signs streaming exclusivity deal with Mixer

Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, former professional Halo player and face of both Twitch and Fortnite, has signed a streaming exclusivity deal with Microsoft's streaming platform, Mixer.

The announcement came on Thursday, Aug 1, in a press conference-style video posted on Ninja's Twitter account.

In the video, the popular streamer says “I know this will come as a shock to many of you. It’s the same me, just a different platform.”

He also assures users that he won't lose any of his gaming ability, and that this move allows him to "go back to his streaming roots". What this means isn't yet clear.

Since the announcement, Ninja has gained nearly 250,000 followers on Mixer and every user is eligible to claim one free subscription to the streamer for a month. We don't know exact figures on how many have taken advantage of this, but we would speculate the number is pretty high – Ninja tweeted a few hours later that he had surpassed 100,000 subscribers on the platform, a figure he hasn't been at for a few months on Twitch.

Of course, the gaming and esports community was rife with opinions about the move.

100 Thieves CEO Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag even managed to crack a joke about the difficulties of switching platforms.

There isn't yet any public information about the details of the deal – it's almost certainly a multi-million dollar signing, likely stretching into the tens of millions and above. This article will be updated should we find out any details, so stay tuned.