Twitch App for Xbox One in March

The Twitch app for Xbox One will finally be available in a March update for the system, according to Associated Press. Only yesterday I was lamenting the lack of facility compared to the PS4 and, according to Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, the new app will be much better integrated into games.

We already know that we’ll be able to launch and control it using Kinect and the Xbox One’s Snap feature. Shear says that viewers will be able to jump right into a broadcaster’s game. “It’s complete integration. It’s exciting because we’ve never had the ability to broadcast from a console like this with such a deep level of integration. The concept of being able to join a broadcasters’ party is really cool, and it’s another step in the direction of interacting more closely with broadcasters.”

I do hope there’s some way for broadcasters to manage these users though the Twitch App. One of the biggest problems I’ve had on PS4 is blocking abusive commenters and spam. There are no tools to do this on the console or even the mobile apps, so I have to monitor Twitch chat on my laptop. Hopefully the streamers have to invite people or set up certain users with game-joining permission, because if not, I can imagine popular streamers being inundated with requests.

The app is reportedly scheduled confirmed to launch alongside Titanfall, on 11th March. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s vice president of marketing and strategy for Xbox felt that the Sony-developed PS4 version of Twitch was not enough. “For us, we thought that was too limiting for what our fans would want. Our fans really want the full next-gen service, so that’s why we decided to take our time, do it right and have it come out in this fashion.”

“This will open up the social aspect of Xbox One in a new way. The community of Twitch is huge, and this allows us to type [sic] into that, and frankly do something that’s never been done before on consoles. You’ll be able to broadcast to any device and consume anyone’s broadcast from any device. It’s a console experience unique to the Xbox One.”

We don’t yet know if you’ll be able to archive and highlight clips of your Xbox One streams, nor the picture quality that the machine will be able to provide but I’ll definitely stream some Xbox One games on my channel next month.

[originally via Joystiq]

Update: The Official Twitch Blog has posted more details on their Xbox One app. Still no news on moderation tools but there are bunch of welcome features that expand beyond the PS4 version.

• You can choose to follow streamers
• Xbox One streams will be viewable on all devices, including the PS4 and you can also watch PS4 streams on it.
• You can reposition the webcam picture-in-picture window. When I streamed Outlast on the PS4 the other week, it slapped my face straight over the battery indicator for the night vision light and I couldn’t move it :\
• Channel subscribers can use their subs-only emotes and badges
• Twitch Turbo subscribers can get an ad-free stream

Here’s their video, featuring a super-annoying US announcer. It shows that the Kinect picture will/can be widescreen and you actually get a decent number of chat lines on-screen.