[Rumor] YouTube/Google Plans to Buy Twitch for $1 Billion

[dgstorm]

It looks like today is a day for merger and acquisition news. This news piece hits the Android target just as indirectly as the last one, but it's still worth relaying the info. Apparently the YouTube division of Google may be in talks to buy Twitch for $1 Billion. This would be the largest deal ever for either YouTube or Twitch. Obviously, this will be Google's way of shoring up their gaming related content for YouTube.

Here's a quote with a few more details,

San Francisco-based Twitch lets users upload and watch free, live gameplay videos that can be streamed from Microsoft Xbox and PlayStation 4 consoles, and also sells ad-free subscriptions. The company claims to have more than 45 million monthly users, with more than 1 million members who upload videos each month. It also has deals to distribute shows from partners including CBS Interactive’s GameSpot, Joystiq and Destructoid.

YouTube is preparing for U.S. regulators to challenge the Twitch deal, according to sources. YouTube is far and away the No. 1 platform for Internet video, serving more than 6 billion hours of video per month to 1 billion users worldwide, and the company expects the Justice Department to take a hard look at whether buying Twitch raises anticompetitive issues in the online-video market.

Twitch was launched in June 2011 by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, co-founders of Justin.tv, one of the first websites to host livestreaming user-generated video. Shear currently serves as CEO of Twitch.

It will be interesting to see what this means for the Xbox One. More than likely, Google would not make any decision which would hurt the user-base of Twitch if they did purchase it, but Microsoft is one of their staunchest competitors. It's possible Google could complicate the Twitch TV deal that Microsoft currently has for the Xbox One.

Of course, at this point the deal is simply rumor. We will keep you apprised if it actually goes through.

Source: Variety