Disney Plus streaming service: All the important things you should know

Disney is well on its way to craft a streaming service of its own to rival that of Netflix.

With Disney’s new streaming service online consumers will have the opportunity to stream all the content that fans of high-quality entertainment crave such as,

• Marvel
• Pixar
• Star Wars

And much more.

In this piece, we will take a look at the things that you need to know about Disney Plus right here and right now.

Disney and another streaming service

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that Disney has bet pretty big on the company’s streaming service that will launch in the next couple of months or so.

The company is calling the streaming service as Disney Plus.

We also know that the entertainment giant will use the new streaming service to stream all of its content that is created via Disney.

More or less, the new streaming service will act as a hub for online consumers who like to watch content with a huge budget.

We’re talking about content such as,

• Marvel Cinematic Universe movies
• Star Wars

That means that upon launch Disney Plus would allow users to watch shows such as Avengers: Endgame.

If reports in the media are to be believed, fans will have to wait till December 11 of this year to get their hands on the new streaming service.

Not only that, Disney Plus will also offer other movies such as those developed by Pixar along with a good bunch of various other original movies and TV shows which are, in turn, based on the franchises that we have mentioned above.

There will be a lot more content so don’t you worry about running out of content with Disney Plus.

It comes as no surprise that a good portion of the programming that Disney has planned for its streaming service, Disney Plus, will lean into Disney’s own big-budget and well-marketed franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel.

Some of the future movies with big-budget and live-action are already under development such as The Mandalorian.

This project has actually completed filming and Disney plans to offer this movie along with each subscription of Disney Plus when it finally launches in a couple of months or so.

Disney will then add other movies which can rightly be labeled as Marvel spin-offs such as a TV show which will be based on the Avengers character by the name of Loki.

There will also be WandaVision which would feature both Vision and another mystery character.

The movie will debut in the new streaming service’s second year.

As far as media reports go, Disney seems pretty confident that its original programming will leave a mark on the market.

Most sources say that the cost of one episode in the show The Mandalorian approached around $15 million.

Compare that to another popular (of course, disturbing for most people with a sound mind- or not-) Game of Thrones TV series which did not begin to spend that amount of money until it got to its final season.

Of course, the Mandalorian will not be premiering anywhere in the world until November 12 of this year, Jon Favreau, the executive producer on the show has already set himself up for writing the second season of the show.

And that is not even the biggest draw of the new streaming service that will make way into our homes very soon.

The biggest reveal that Disney has made until now is the price that it will charge users who want to use its streaming service.

Currently, the word is that Disney Plus will charge users around $7 per month.

For those who don’t know, that is half the price that you have to pay for a streaming service like HBO Now and others.

Compare that price with what you have to pay for Netflix and you will start to see the $7 per month price as a major discount.

There is no doubt about the fact that Netflix and Disney Plus will become the biggest rivals in the streaming industry.

In fact, the situation is already heating up fast.

Disney, for its part, has already begun to hold back many of its new movie releases which were supposed to happen this year from streaming service giant Netflix.

Netflix, as we all know, had done well for itself by becoming the go-to hub for people who want to stream Disney movies for the last couple of years.

So how good is the overall Disney Plus streaming package?

Is it something that you should pay money for?

Or should you stick with the industry giants such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix?

Well, to answer that question let’s go over some details that we know for sure.

Essentially, the choice that users will have to make is whether or not they want to have access to various Marvel movies and Star Wars shows.

People who have kids along with the ones who like the shows that we have mentioned above will have to deal with the fact that before the year is out they will have another subscription to take care of.

But what is Disney Plus streaming service?

Just like Netflix and HBO Now along with many others, Disney Plus will be a streaming service that will hopefully toughen up the competition and keep the current masters of the streaming business on their toes.

Not to mention that along with Disney Plus we will also see the entry of another streaming service with a big budget in the form of Apple TV Plus.

Disney Plus will require online consumers to pay for a subscription package after which they would not have to watch any kind of ads as they are watching their favorite shows and movies.

When it does come online later this year, Disney Plus will give customers complete access to a rather vast library of Fox’s and Disney’s legacy high-quality content in addition to anything and everything new that Disney will commission or produce itself.
We’re talking about exclusive documentaries, movies and TV shows among various other things.

Reports have it that Disney wants to bring two of its other streaming services on the same tech platform.

If you didn’t know this already then know now that Disney also owns ESPN Plus (a streaming service focused on sports) and Hulu.

Apparently, the company wants to make sure that users are able to run any of the three streaming services with ease and on all of their devices.

While doing so, Disney also wants customers to make use of the same password and username password as well as the same debit/credit card information.

Currently, Disney is all set to keep all the three streaming services as individual services.

But we have heard from various sources that the company is more than likely to bundle all the three streaming services at some point in the future by offering a discount.

You will also be surprised to know that FX Plus isn’t doing well as far as Disney’s streaming services plans are concerned.

Apparently, the service doesn’t offer much to fit into the whole equation and Disney will shut it down on August 21 this year.

FX Plus can be had for just $6 per month as an add-on subscription deal for subscribers Comcast and Cox cable.

It also removes advertisements from all past and current seasons of many of the most popular FX Shows.

FX became a part of Disney earlier this year when Disney bought Fox by paying around $71.3 billion.

However, the simple fact is that Disney has designated Hulu for offering customers adult-oriented TV programming.

In other words, FX Plus is simply a casualty of the Disney and Fox merger.

All signs indicate that Disney Plus will offer customers all of the family-friendly Disney content that generations of people have come to expect and consume.

Disney is looking to bring in a massive number of people to its streaming service and it is going to have to rely on every inch of its programming (from old to new).

More specifically, Disney Plus will offer content from,

• National geographic
• Pixar
• LucasFilm
• Marvel

But that is not all.

Disney has planned to offer a lot of other content that does not fit into the above-mentioned traditional categories.

In total, it will offer users each and every single one of the hugely popular (but probably not suitable for children) The Simpsons.

The Simpson, for Disney, is a brand new feather in the company’s cap which came from Disney’s takeover of Fox.

As mentioned above, Disney will have Hulu streaming content for the more adult-oriented audience.

To take an example, instead of Disney Plus, Hulu will have to stream the up-and-coming Marvel collection of adult-oriented animation TV services.

Moreover, it is highly likely that Disney will use Hulu to streaming FX and Deadpool-like content since the company now owns Fox.

Of course, there is nothing stopping Hulu from streaming content from a total of three other broadcasting networks along with its own original TV series.

ESPN Plus, as the name suggests, will continue to focus on sports only.

Since Disney is now in a position where it can completely control the content that goes in the direction of Hulu, it really doesn’t have any roadblocks in making all the three streaming services work.

As recently as March, a total of our companies had actually owned Hulu.

However, earlier in the month Disney made the official announcement that it had decided to buy the rest of the streaming service (Hulu) in addition to what it had already owned before.

Again, this will surely give Disney a lot more flexibility when it comes to giving people discount on bundles such as ESPN Plus with Disney Plus or Hulu with Disney Plus.

So keep your wallets ready come the November 12 as it is the date Disney Plus will officially launch in the United States.

Disney Plus release date

Now, Disney has chosen the release date for Disney Plus very wisely.

We say that for two reasons.

One, by having the release date of Disney Plus on November 12, it gives Disney Plus a chance to simply piggyback on all the marketing activities that Disney will carry out for its big-budget movies and TV shows for the whole holiday season.

Most of you already know that Frozen 2 is going to hit the theaters November 22 this year while Star Wars: Episode IX has a release date of December 20.

Of course, Netflix is no slouch either when it comes to promoting itself on the grandest of stages.

The streaming service has shown that there is a lot of truth to the fact that most streaming services get the bulk of their viewing numbers in the last couple of months of a given year.

Netflix came out with Bird Box a while back and the streaming giant has said that more than a total of 80 million accounts had viewed the film in the very first month that it was released.

Not surprisingly, the movie came out on December 21.

Then Netflix came out with Bright.

Bright represented another fantasy crime movie that starred Will Smith.

Before Bird Box, Bright had the tag of the most viewed film on Netflix.

And surprise surprise, Bright had a release date of December 13.

As far as the global side of the business is concerned, Disney has made concrete plans on how it would progressively roll out its movies worldwide over a period of two years rather than one.

Just recently Disney offered the media a generalized timeline mentioning when the company would launch its movies in major world regions.

However, the timeline did not actually pinpoint a specific launch date for any of its movies except for the ones that were releasing in the US.

To take an example, at this point in time we know that Disney Plus will have an official launch in the United States of America.

We also know that presumably, the service will also launch in Canada.

And it is entirely certain that it will launch during the coming last three months of 2019.

However, we still do not know much about the exact release date of the service in Canada.

Of course, it stands to reason that whatever the release date is set for Canada it will probably not precede November 12 which is the official launch date in the United States of America.

Apart from all that, we have come to know that Disney Plus is all set to roll out in regions such as,

• The Asia Pacific.
  That will happen slowly over the course of a total of two years. The starting date can be as early as October of this year.
• Latin America.
  The service will start offering its content over a period of three years and people might be able to sign up for the service as early as October of 2020.
• Eastern Europe.
  Disney Plus will start offering its services in the region over a period of 12 months and people will have the opportunity to sign up for the service as early as October of 2010.
• Western Europe.
  In this region, Disney Plus will do things quickly and launch its official service over a period of six months.
  More specifically, the rollout will start as early as October of this year and will finish before March of the coming year.

How much will Disney Plus cost me?

Well, as mentioned at the top as well, currently Disney Plus is all set to offer its services for a lowly price of $7 per month.

If it gets launched later this year and everything goes to plan, then you will have the chance of signing up for 12 months with the service for just $70.

As alluded to earlier as well, the Disney Plus price easily undercuts the likes of Netflix.

Netflix currently charges users around $13 per month for the company’s most popular package in the United States of America.

That $13 package allows users to stream on a total of two different streaming devices simultaneously and that too in high definition.

Christine M. McCarthy, the Chief Financial Officer of Disney recently hinted that the pricing for Disney Plus may rise in the future as the service continues to improve and advance.

The CFO actually called the $7 per month price as nothing but an initial price.

Disney has said in the past that it would like to bundle ESPN Plus and/or Hulu with Disney Plus at some point in the future.

The company said that it would offer a discount to users who would subscribe to either two or three of its streaming services.

Now, back in the year 2017, Iger pointed out that the price for the service would have no problems in reflecting the fact that it would have way less volume of customers (and perhaps content as well) than the service’s prime streaming competitor in the form of Netflix.

But like any good company, Disney has used that time to successfully funnel more originals and exclusives into Disney Plus.

You don’t need a good guesser to know that the company is definitely going to start tapping the streaming service’s price incrementally higher.

Exactly how should you stream Disney Plus?

Well, at the time of writing this report, Disney Plus said that it would support platforms such as,

• Streaming media boxes
• Connected TV sets
•  Computers
• Tablets
• Phones

That makes perfect sense.

Apart from that, Disney mentioned that it would also support Roku TV along with Sony PlayStation 4.

In fact, the presentation slides that the company used in a recent conference included different photos of devices such as,

• Amazon Fire TV
• Apple TV
• Chromecast

However, the company officially has not confirmed or denied supporting these devices.

From a general perspective though, it makes sense that Disney would want to reach the goal of offering its streaming services on as many devices as possible.

Disney Plus is all set to launch in November in the US and the company is ramping up its efforts to a wide range of supporting devices ready for it.

One Disney representative informed CNET that the new streaming service, Disney Plus would have the capability of streaming HDR and 4K content.

However, Disney still has not managed to specify the titles.

The company has also not said much about how much would it cost the user to consume these higher-quality content formats.

Moreover, Disney is still to comment on whether or not Disney Plus will allow simultaneous streams and/or how many of them on a single Disney Plus subscription account.

However, the company has confirmed that the new streaming service Disney Plus would definitely offer users some download options.

Again, the company has decided to keep it light on the details but it did reveal that Disney Plus would give each subscriber pretty much an unprecedented amount of high-quality content for offline usage.

Will Disney Plus affect your Netflix account?

It is very likely that Disney will more or less completely disappear from Netflix in the next couple of months or so.

There is a caveat though.

Ever since the year 2016, the first place where online consumers go to in order to watch Disney movies is Netflix.

Of course, they still need a Netflix subscription package to watch Disney movies.

The deal between Disney and Netflix meant that Netflix had an easier ride in becoming the go-to online streaming service for some of the biggest blockbuster movies in the US for a good chunk of the last three or four years.

If you look at it a bit closer you will see that the top two most popular movies in 2017 and the top three most popular movies in 2016 and in the year 2018 all had come from Disney.

Netflix brought them all together.

However, things look set to change now.