Slashdot Mirror
Disney To Close 'Vault' For Good As It Moves Film Library To Streaming Service (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Disney is rapidly preparing to launch its own streaming service, dubbed Disney+, later this year. While the debut date is still unknown, we now know that the service will include the entire Disney movie library shortly after the service launches. According to a report in Polygon, Disney CEO Bob Iger explained the strategy to investors at a meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, pointing at the retirement of Disney's longstanding "vault." "The service... is going to combine what we call library product, movies, and television, with a lot of original product as well, movies and television," Iger said. "And at some point fairly soon after launch, it will house the entire Disney motion picture library, so the movies that you speak of that traditionally have been kept in a 'vault' and brought out basically every few years will be on the service. And then, of course, we're producing a number of original movies and original television shows as well that will be Disney-branded."
The Disney Vault has been a marketing and sales strategy for years. After a film's initial release run, Disney would sequester the title in its vault for a long period of time. That meant that customers who didn't buy a physical copy of the movie immediately would be out of luck until Disney brought it out of the vault as a new edition or a special release run. This strategy allowed Disney to control film sales and drum up anticipation for titles that were coming out of the vault once the company decided the time was right. But it also frustrated customers who ended up paying high prices for copies of movies that were widely unavailable during their vault stints. This exclusivity will be an important factor for Disney as it competes with other streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.
The Disney Vault has been a marketing and sales strategy for years. After a film's initial release run, Disney would sequester the title in its vault for a long period of time. That meant that customers who didn't buy a physical copy of the movie immediately would be out of luck until Disney brought it out of the vault as a new edition or a special release run. This strategy allowed Disney to control film sales and drum up anticipation for titles that were coming out of the vault once the company decided the time was right. But it also frustrated customers who ended up paying high prices for copies of movies that were widely unavailable during their vault stints. This exclusivity will be an important factor for Disney as it competes with other streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.
I look forward to seeing Song of the South on the new Disney streaming service...
NOT.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it isn't on Amazon I won't bother.
I'm confused. Is Disney going to 'close the vault' and stop selling physical media entirely? Or are they going to sell physical media of all their products all the time, since they're available for streaming anyway?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Sad when a company has to resort to artificial scarcity in order to drive sales.
I guess they have run out of ideas because I see they are remaking the same crap over and over again. e.g. Lion King (2019)
Bringing this back on topic -- so if the vault is going to be closed does that mean that everything can now be finally bought as a physical copy instead of being artificially restricted or will the only way to "own" these movies is to pay for a subscription to Disney+ ?