Ninja fires up his first-ever YouTube stream, but is this a permanent move?

By Eric Abent/

When Microsoft announced that it would be shutting down Mixer and offering streamers the chance to join Facebook Gaming, there was a lot of question over what would happen to Ninja and Shroud – two of Mixer's biggest streamers. Ninja and Shroud had both built very successful streams on Twitch, and when Microsoft was pushing to make Mixer a competitor, it signed both streamers to exclusive contracts, causing them to leave their Twitch audiences behind and begin streaming only on Mixer for an certain amount of time.

Now that Mixer is going the way of the dodo, Ninja and Shroud are both free to do what they want. When the shutdown was announced, both streamers took to Twitter to say they were figuring out their next moves, largely going silent on the matter after that. Today, however, we may have learned where Ninja is planning to stream next.

Earlier today, Ninja hosted his first-ever YouTube livestream. While many assumed that Ninja would be heading back to Twitch, the success of his YouTube channel can't be understated either, with its 23.8 million subscribers and 2.2 billion lifetime views according to Social Blade. The livestream lasted just over an hour and a half and featured Ninja playing Fortnite with other well-known streamers like TimTheTatman, DrLupo, and CouRageJD.

So, is YouTube where Ninja has decided to continue his streaming career? Not necessarily. According to esports reporter Rod Breslau on Twitter, Ninja is "currently in negotiations with streaming platforms and no exclusive deal has yet been signed, including YouTube." The decision to stream on YouTube, Breslau says, was Ninja's alone.

Still, for an impromptu stream on a platform Ninja has never livestreamed on before, he was met with a lot of success on YouTube. He managed to get up to 150,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube, but given the following he built on Twitch throughout the years, he'd probably have many more concurrent viewers on a return stream there. We'll see what happens from here, but for now, it seems that Ninja may only be testing the waters when it comes to YouTube streaming.

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