LONDON: Social media platform X has started to test game streaming and live shopping features. Elon Musk, X’s owner, posted a video of himself playing Diablo IV on the platform, demonstrating the new features of the X video game streamer system. Musk wrote: “Tested the X video game streamer system last night. It works! Will try to complete a Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon tonight live on this platform.” Musk streamed his gameplay of Nightmare Dungeon, and wrote: “Testing video game streaming on X.” The X broadcast lasted 52 minutes, of which the first dozen were spent setting up the stream. The event, which was not advertised by Musk, was watched by a total of 20,000 people, with a peak of 1,300 concurrent viewers. Separately, X has announced a new partnership with Paris Hilton to experiment with live shopping features. X’s Broadcast feature, which allows users to stream live video, is part of the company’s plan to transform from a short-message website into a more comprehensive social media platform that includes long-form video and other features. Musk’s testing of the new game-streaming feature suggests that he is trying to compete with Twitch, the leading game-streaming platform owned by Amazon. Musk is also offering paying subscribers a share of the advertising revenue from their posts, which could lure Twitch streamers who are unhappy with Twitch’s monetization policies. The gaming and esports industry has experienced exponential growth in recent years, with the Middle East and North Africa region being the fastest-growing area due to demographic and consumption trends. According to data and analytics streaming platform Streams Charts, Arabic streamers were watched for 120 million hours in 2022 on Twitch, the most popular streaming platform in the region. Given X’s strong regional presence in MENA, its move to launch game streaming and live shopping features could be a game-changer for the industry and a significant boost for the $38 billion investment strategy unveiled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2022. However, the full-scale rollout of these features has not yet been announced, and experts have raised concerns about whether X’s infrastructure can handle the new live video features. Musk last week attempted to stream from the US border with Mexico, but the video feed abruptly cut out after about four minutes due to technical issues.