Game streamer Hitbox takes on Twitch with 4K eSports broadcasts
Pop quiz hotshot: Name a game broadcasting service that isn't Twitch, YouTube Gaming or MLG.tv. Give up? You're forgiven. Vienna-based Hitbox.tv is relatively new to the space and its looking to make a name for itself by offering features that the competition doesn't. Like streaming eSports events in 4K at 60FPS starting this fall, for instance. As Twitch expands into more and more non-gaming avenues, Hitbox thinks it can serve the core crowd that might feel alienated by those moves. The Austrian company has picked up some new investments recently -- most notably from the folks behind World of Tanks, Wargaming. A canned statement from the latter says that forthcoming games will "integrate game data" into broadcasts and that it should be pretty easy to do so. Hitbox also offers a wide-open revenue split system that every broadcaster has access to, rather than Twitch's curated Partner program highlighting its top broadcasters.
All of this sounds good on paper but there's really only so much room at the top. The technology might be there, sure, but the common response you'll get from the most prominent Twitch casters is that technology isn't why they stick with Amazon's $970 million baby. No, they continue to stay with Twitch because the community is better -- all the money and computing power in the world can't change that. And if it could, YouTube Gaming with all of its money and Google's infrastructure would be the reigning champ in the space. Only time will tell if there are enough people to support four separate live-streaming services simultaneously.
[Image credit: UIG via Getty Images]
