Video game live streaming service Twitch kicked off its annual TwitchCon Friday, Sept. 30 with a keynote and revealed a slew of brand-new features that are poised to changed the face of the service for years to come, including Twitch Prime, Loyalty Badges and HTML5 Support.
Unfortunately for Twitch, some of these additions were revealed ahead of schedule when several users noticed a new section called "Twitch Prime" appear on their profiles.
Well this is... interesting.
Twitch Prime Oo
Apprently you get it as Amazon Prime member and gives you ad-free viewing. pic.twitter.com/8hzDQJhfjb
— Dennis S. (@der_rod) September 30, 2016
And now with Twitch's announcement, we know these additions are indeed real and will all be readily available in the near future. Here is the list of what Twitch revealed during its keynote.
Twitch Prime
The most significant of Twitch's announcements was the unveiling of Twitch Prime, a free bonus that comes with every subscription of Amazon Prime. Users with Twitch Prime will be privy to discounts on newly released games, ad-free viewing, one free channel subscription per month (streamers still get paid for these subscriptions), free release-day delivery on games and a monthly "game loot" (the first is Tyrande, from Blizzard's Warcraft franchise, as a new Priest hero in Hearthstone).
Loyalty Badges
Streamers will be able to give special badges to users who have been frequenting their streams for extended periods of time (three, six, 12 or 24 months). Coming in three weeks, each of these badges are unique and streamers will be able to design them to their liking.
HTML5 Support
Starting off as a beta earlier this year and continuing for several months afterward, HTML5 is now fully functional on Twitch and it will be made available to everyone immediately.
Transcoding
Twitch is opening up transcoding, thus allowing streamers to offer a wider array of video quality options to its viewers. Unfortunately, it seems only partnered streams have access to this, but Twitch stated its intentions to extend this to non-partnered streams in the coming months.
Clips On Mobile
Twitch is becoming more mobile-friendly, and starting immediately, users will be able to clip, create and share clips from Twitch streams on iOS/Android. In addition, clips will get more precise via an upcoming clip trimming feature that's due to arrive mid-October.
Uploading
Until today, the only content streamers could host on their channels were live content or previously live content that they had streamed on Twitch. Now, users will be able to upload prerecorded videos to their channels as well.
To recap, all of these additions are free except for Twitch Prime, which is only available for Amazon Prime subscribers. If you don't happen to have one yet, you can try the new subscription service free for 30 days. Below are the countries where the service is available:
• US: $11/month or $100/year
• Canada: CAD $79/year
• UK: £8/month
• Germany: EUR 49/year
• France: EUR 49/year
• Italy: EUR 20/year
• Spain: EUR 20/year
Twitch Turbo will still be available for users already subscribed and in countries where Twitch Prime is unavailable. In the countries that have Twitch Prime, Turbo subscriptions will no longer be available, instead rolling its benefits into the new service.
