5 Things to Know About Disney+

Disney, primarily as a result of acquiring both the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, has become an entertainment juggernaut that dwarfs all others. In fact, because of their ownership of those two properties as well as a few others, they’ve got a substantial amount of content available to them. So much so, that they’re launching their own streaming service, known as Disney+. Let’s take a look at the biggest aspects of this upcoming streaming service.

It’ll have an impressive library on launch

The Disney+ service will launch in the USA on the 12th of November 2019, just in time for users to have the mother of all Christmas binges of a mass of different series and movies. This initial library is suspected to be around 7,500 episodes of television series and in the region of 500 movies – which is fairly expansive. Disney’s own content, as well as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic, in addition to a lot of others, will find their new homes on Disney+.

Original Marvel and Star Wars shows will be on Disney+

Avid streamers will be well aware of network exclusives available only on some of the popular existing streaming services like Netflix, and the same will hold true for Disney+. Star Wars fans will probably have seen the recent The Mandalorian teaser footage, and similar shows set in the Star Wars or Marvel universes (a Falcon and The Winter Soldier show is in the works) will now be available on Disney+, and in all likelihood, exclusively too. The cool thing is that they’ll be able to potentially fast-track some cool new series or movies that would’ve taken longer with other studios and services.

It’ll support 4K Streaming

This isn’t quite such a huge deal for us South Africans, because 4K isn’t as prevalent here as it is in other markets, but having 4K streaming available right off the bat is pretty cool. Just like with other streaming services, Disney+ is going to be available on a multitude of devices from consoles to smartphones and everything in between.

It’s only going to be $6.99 per month on launch

Services like Netflix have managed to compete quite seriously with established cable and satellite content providers because of their exceptionally accessible prices – and it looks like Disney will be following suit. They’ll be introducing their service subscription at a price of $6.99 initially, which will likely equate to a price of around R100 per month when it rolls around to South Africa, but it’s likely to be worth it considering the content available initially and how their library is going to grow.

Global Rollout is a little vague

All their current details are applicable to the US market, but they’ve got a rough timeline set for 2020 and 2021 to introduce Disney+ to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of certainty with which we can predict when it’s going to hit more markets, more specifically South Africa. Additional markets like the UK will probably only have it available in 2020, with Eastern Europe and Asia looking at a 2021 release date. It’s anyone’s guess when we’ll see it, but in all likelihood it will be at the later end of the timeframe.

Is a Disney+ streaming service with guaranteed content in some of the most popular movie universes enough to get you to subscribe to another service? Let us know!