Google/YouTube Could Buy Game-Streaming Service Twitch For $1bn | TechTree.com

Google/YouTube Could Buy Game-Streaming Service Twitch For $1bn

Twitch supposedly rejected a billion-dollar offer from Microsoft, instead chosing YouTube as a buyer.

 

Reports suggesting Google's plans of making another billion-dollar acquisition have emerged, with YouTube allegedly looking to buy Twitch.tv for $1 billion. The increasingly popular service allows gamers watch others play games live, and will be a valuable edition to YouTube's game-streaming prowess.

 

According to TheVerge, Microsoft and other companies have made serious approaches to buy Twitch, but the company turned their offers down and chose YouTube instead. The reason for this is most likely due to the gamer-friendly nature of the service not wanting to tie itself to Microsoft's Xbox, or Sony's Playstation for that matter.

 

While many questions were initially raised as to how successful Twitch could be, the user base of the service has skyrocketed since it was launched in 2011. Now Twitch pushes more traffic than giants like Facebook and Amazon during peak hours, with the company complaining of not being able to keep up with traffic.

 

YouTube already has its own game-streaming service, but has struggled to gain traction amongst the community. Now Google could be looking to acquire Twitch not only to get its user base, but also to eliminate the threat of a potential rival in the near future.

 

Despite being able to attract venture capitalists to invest in growing the service, Twitch doesn't just need cash, but also technology and infrastructure. It is for this reason that the company could be looking at Google and in particular its YouTube division as a suitable owner to aid its rapid growth.


TAGS: Internet, Gaming, Twitch.tv, YouTube, game-streaming, Google

 
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