Arguably the biggest presence on streaming platform Twitch, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has seen massive success on Amazon’s go-to streaming platform and obtaining a sizable fanbase casually playing the likes of Fortnite. Though Twitch has long been the host of Ninja’s worldwide stardom, the streamer has recently announced that he plans to move his future streams exclusively to Microsoft‘s rival streaming service Mixer.

Accompanied by a humorous announcement video, Ninja “explains” his surprise decision to trade platforms to a crowd of reporters. We see the switch to Mixer met with numerous questions, to which Ninja affirms a commitment to keeping up the quality of his content, his Fortnite win-loss ratio, as well as his signature hair. When asked about the jump to Mixer itself, Ninja spoke about his excitement to “get back in touch with [his] roots” as a video game streamer. Check it out below.

A streamer as big as Ninja leaving Twitch is in itself a big deal, making his sudden move to an admittedly less-popular platform like Mixer an even more momentous event in the gaming space. While not expressly revealing as much, it’s likely that Microsoft paid out a pretty penny to persuade Ninja to trade up, especially as doing so would surely present a risk to the popular personality’s stardom in the grand scheme of things.

To help convince his millions-strong subscriber base to also make the jump, Microsoft has begun offering a free month of full subscriptions to Ninja’s new Mixer channel, the freebie likely lasting for the duration of August. Similar to Twitch, the rival service touts a number of subscriber-specific benefits such as an ad-free experience as well as “22 custom Ninja emoticons” and the bragging rights of being “a supporting community member.”

Though Ninja’s Mixer followers currently linger around 242,000 (compared to his over 14 million on Twitch), it’s likely that Microsoft is still nonetheless confident in the streamer’s ability to deliver a considerable audience. Nabbing the biggest face on Twitch could very well prove extremely beneficial to Mixer, adding the platform’s profile and attracting viewers that would’ve never tuned-in otherwise. We’ll get our first look at Microsoft’s mighty investment when Ninja’s inaugural Mixer stream goes live from Lollapalooza today at 12 PM CST.

What do you think? Are you upset that Ninja has suddenly left Twitch behind, or are you intrigued by these new Mixer streaming horizons? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow Don’t Feed the Gamers on Twitter and Facebook to be informed of the latest gaming and entertainment news 24 hours a day! For more headlines recently featured on DFTG, check out these next few news stories:

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