TwitchTV comes to the iPhone
If you're a regular watcher of
TwitchTV you'll be happy to hear that now you can tune into your favorite eSports matches on your iPhone. The new app streams all of the TwitchTV matches directly to the tablet in HD, with a full suite of search options so you can find exactly which competition you're looking for, recent or otherwise.
While I'm sure TwitchTV has the best intentions, this is kind of an odd marriage in my opinion. The Extra Credits people already did a
great episode on why pro gaming has a ways to go before it's a legitimate spectator sport, so I won't bother repeating their excellent analysis here.
Pro gaming hurdles aside, I really don't think that the iPhone (or any of Apple's portables for that matter) and pro gaming really go together, or at least their audiences don't overlap much. The iPhone might work well for casual fare but the combination of Apple's proprietary stranglehold on the portable severely limiting its capabilities and the touch-only interface are simply not conducive to most forms of video games. It's going to take a fully featured 4G tablet with dedicated game controls, a keyboard
and a touch pad--kind of a DS/laptop/tablet Frankenstein on steroids--before we truly have the end-all of portable gaming. Until then, I'll stick with a DS or Vita for more immersive gaming on the go.
TwitchTV Launches Fully-Featured Application to Bring World’s Largest Video Game Streaming Community to iPhone
iOS application captures the full TwitchTV experience complete with HD video streaming and chat functionality
San Francisco, CA – October 26, 2011 –TwitchTV, the world’s largest video game broadcasting community, today launched a fully-featured iPhone application for the optimum in mobile eSports engagement. The iOS app is designed to bring the full TwitchTV experience to the iPhone with complete support for browsing and viewing all TwitchTV streams in high-definition, as well as a fully-featured chat experience.
“This has been one of the most frequently requested items since we launched,” said Emmett Shear, CEO of TwitchTV. “Our community is truly native to the mobile environment. They switch back and forth from Web to mobile and back again, not seeming to recognize boundaries. So it’s very important to bring them a TwitchTV experience that does the same.”
This iPhone application has several key features including the ability to view all of TwitchTV’s streaming content in high definition in full landscape mode. For ease of use, it boasts extremely robust search functionality, including the ability to browse by game or featured offerings. It also allows users to follow their favorite channels directly from the video stream, as well as the ability to view a list of live broadcasts from the channels they follow. In addition, users can chat with their friends on the video stream via a fully-featured in-app chat.
TwitchTV launched in early June 2011 and has since experienced strong growth, surpassing 10 million monthly unique viewers in the month of September. TwitchTV’s strategic partnerships with gaming leagues, teams and tournaments have contributed to its 10 percent month over month growth. In addition to the iPhone application, TwitchTV plans to launch native applications for iPad, as well as Android devices including phones and tablets.
TwitchTV recently had its best week ever driven by new partnerships with premier eSports leagues, teams and tournaments. Between October 10-16, 2011, the site received massive traffic:
Weekly Unique Viewers: 4,214,057
Total Hours Watched: 6,737,250
Total Hours Watched per Unique Viewer: 1.6
Peak Concurrent Viewers on all Gaming Content: 165,250
Peak Concurrent Viewers on a Single Stream: 125,862
Weekly Unique Chatters: 309,220
About TwitchTV
TwitchTV is the world’s largest video game broadcasting and chat community. TwitchTV features the top gaming personalities, players, tournaments and commentary, in addition to the most active and interesting discussions around video games. TwitchTV provides publishers and advertisers a platform to create long term engagement and commitment from gamers. Learn more at http://twitch.tv.
