Co-streaming has been one of the fastest growing mediums for viewers to consume content. It’s a simple concept: Why watch a simple broadcast when you could watch the broadcast with input from your favorite streamer, with the community they’ve built in their chat?
Apparently, Nintendo Japan isn’t completely on board with the idea yet. According to a post from their Twitter account, they don’t want anyone co-streaming Nintendo Direct, set to debut at E3 on June 15.
Essentially, Nintendo wants content creators to be able to post “reaction” videos, but not in real-time, which would affect streaming, according to a rough machine translation. It’s unclear if the rule only affects streamers in Japan, or if it applies to the rest of the world as well.
E3 already has a strict list of official co-streaming partners, who are okayed to co-stream the event in real time. According to Kotaku, less than 100 official co-streaming partners were selected out of thousands of applications. Whether Nintendo can circumvent those already-official partnerships remains to be seen, but it’s Nintendo we’re talking about. They have more than enough pull to make things happen.
Co-streaming looks to be the way of the future, and it seems mostly harmless should the streamers abide by some rules set forward by the company running the broadcast. Let all the ads be run, don’t cover up branding with your own, for example. Some still aren’t on board with the new phenomenon, and Nintendo doesn’t seem to be completely with the times yet.
