At San Diego Comic-Con, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Digital Labs were able to give fans and reporters access to a demo for their upcoming premium streaming service, where they were asked detailed questions and answers were given.
Joblo‘s Paul Shirey was able to sit down with Rob Kamphausen, Vice President, Product of Warner Bros. Digital Labs and walked Shirey through a live demo of the app. Kamphausen was able to show how the app would work on devices like the iPad as well as the Roku. Throughout this presentation, Kamphausen was able to discuss what DC fans can do with this app at launch and how it will differ from other popular services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. You can take a look at Kamphausen’s demo in the video below, but here’s some quick information that can be picked out fast:
- The app is set to launch on the web, iOS (iPad/iPhone), Android (tablet/phones), Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV and Roku TV at launch. There are plans to expand this service to other platforms such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as DC Entertainment does want the service on everyone’s favorite platforms.
- The app is set for a targeted Fall 2018 release date in the United States, where they want to make sure that the service is functional and can handle user-stress before expanding to the global market. It will also be debuting in U.S. territories such as American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, US Minor Outlying Islands, US Virgin Islands alongside the mainland U.S. launch.
- The service has two different subscription plans: monthly ($7.99 USD) and annual ($74.99 USD). Consumers can currently pre-order DC Universe for $74.99 and receive 3 additional months for free.
- The app will give users access to a larger roster of DC live-action and animated films, TV series, animated series, a full library of comics with a native comics viewer, moderated message boards, customize your profile, order exclusive merchandise and other cool perks that come with being a subscriber.
Other important details about the app that stood out is that users will be able to go to a “get to know” section for characters that will take them to a wide-ranging collection of media pertaining to the character such as shows, movies, and comics that they have appeared in. This will really be useful for the more casual fans who want to learn more about DC’s most popular heroes and foes and possibly unite the different spectrums of fans under one roof.
Users will also be able to access a definite encyclopedia surrounding different characters and events from the DC Universe, which won’t be edited in the way that sites like Wikipedia allow. However, that doesn’t mean fans cannot be involved in this. There will be certain sections of pages on the encyclopedia that may be left intentionally blank so fans can give the “official story” and submit it to the team running the app and if they select a winner, they will receive credit on that section with their profile listed next to it. Fans will get to be “a part of that story” as Kamphausen described it.
Video content will also be categorized on the service by trendin, character, year, animated or live action, and genre. The same will be done with the massive library of comic books that will be available at launch, which will change at random times via a rotation and newer books can be purchased for use on the app in a separate window.
They can also give feedback in an area on the service called “MyDC” where they can design their profile with their username, profile picture, and all of the bells and whistles that come with a social profile. MyDC will give users the additional ability to point out the content that matters most to them and even curate their own list of content in the way they desire without conforming to the established set-up of the app. This also will enable offline streaming capabilities for mobile devices, whether that be for comics or shows or movies. They can also recommend content and put their favorites all in one spot so that they can base it on superhero. All of the Batman stories can go with the Batman section, all the Flash stories can go with The Flash section, and so on. Much like how comic book readers typical categorize their comics.
Streaming comics on the service’s native comic reading system will allow them to treat the comics as if they were a cinematic experience and move panel-by-panel in a way that further innovates on what services like Comixology offer. Users will be able to rewind, fast forward, and scrub through panels as they wish. This will make it easier for mobile users to move through something with a lot more ease than if they were utilizing the app on a Roku or Fire TV.
Watch the Joblo video here:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiNwEl6heIg]
You can pre-order the annual DC Universe subscription here.
The DC Universe is set to launch sometime Fall 2018, with a beta test set to start this month. It is likely that we will find out more about the premium service’s actual launch date sometime during or after the beta kicks off, but until then we are left to speculate.
What do you think of this news? Are you excited for DC Universe? Let us know in the comments below!
