We've all been there. We go online and we can't get the tickets for the big concert or the big movie because the site has crashed. We wait in line for hours on Black Friday to get a PS4 on sale, only to find the store's credit card machine is down. We go to use AOL Instant Messenger and realize it's 2019. Bottom line is that in a technological society, technical difficulties are inevitable. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that Disney's new streaming platform, Disney+, has experienced several glitches in its first few hours of existence.
Although Disney+ went live at midnight Pacific Time, a number of Disney+ customers are reporting a variety of technical problems with the new streaming service. An estimated 7,000 people reported issues with Disney+ in the first few hours. A smaller percentage reported log-in problems, however the majority of complaints involved people struggling with streaming, experiencing buffering issues or an inability to stream at all. As you might imagine a number of people took to social media to voice their displeasure because, you know, that always works.
In all seriousness though, these problems should have been expected. In fact they were, as Kevin Mayer, head of Disney's Direct-to-Customer and International unit predicted just last week. Mayer stated, “There are always technical glitches and you can always improve the technical performance of any service like this."
Unfortunately, Mayer's words are probably cold comfort to those currently attempting to stream The Mandalorian. (Incidentally, you can read Alex Maidy's review of said show right here.) Nevertheless, we're talking about thousands upon thousands of hours of content, everything from documentaries like FREE SOLO to big blockbusters like STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS. This was bound to happen. However, Disney's put millions of dollars into this service and probably has hundreds of technical gurus at their disposal. I can't imagine that these problems will last long.
Disney+ officially launches today in the USA, Canada, and the Netherlands. It will also become available in New Zealand, Australia, and Puerto Rico on November 19. Those of you located in Western Europe will have to wait just a bit longer however, as the streaming platform doesn't launch in that region until March 2020.