Beam's interactive livestreaming hits Windows, Xbox this winter

In early August Microsoft announced its acquisition of Beam, a videogame livestreaming service that separates itself from the competition by using tech that allows for low latency and interactive features. Now, Beam has announced it will launch on Microsoft's gaming platforms (Windows 10 and Xbox One) this winter. That's not a very specific window, but it will be interesting to see what happens once the parts come together. Currently, Amazon-owned Twitch is the most popular livestreaming service, but Beam's hook is the ability for viewers to influence the streamer's gameplay and broadcast.

With the support of Microsoft that could mean some interesting new game wrinkles, but so far it's mostly speculative. Already, Beam lets people play along with Minecraft streamers, and in Rare's upcoming game Sea of Thieves, the company says you'll be able to watch from different player perspectives.

Since the acquisition, Beam has launched a few new features including resizeable chat windows, verified social accounts as well as chat replay and activity graphs to go along with archived recordings. Currently, streamers can use OBS or Xsplit to get video of their gameplay on the service, but now we'll be waiting to see what happens when there's built-in support.