YouTube buying Twitch for R10 billion

Variety’s sources claim that Google’s YouTube has purchased Twitch for USD1 billion (±R10.3 billion).

Twitch is a popular video streaming service, and among other things it is mainly used by video gamers to broadcast their gameplay. From the bedroom amateur to high-quality e-sports broadcasts, Twitch has etched itself into the landscape of gaming.

Twitch broadcasting and viewing is also enabled on the next-(now)-gen consoles, PS4 and Xbox One, a move which opened up a new captive audience for the company.

According to their 2013 stats, on average during that year Twitch served 12 billion minutes of video (6 million broadcasts) to 45 million unique viewers per month.

And now Google has its fingers in the pie, with only US regulators standing in the way of finalising the deal.

What do you think of Google’s latest acquisition? Is this a good or bad thing for Twitch and the gaming broadcast community? Let us know in the comments and forum.