Disney+ Head Addresses Launch Day Outages, Promises Software Upgrades Soon

If you’re one of the millions that downloaded Disney+ on November 12th, chances are you had problems at one point or another actually logging on and using the service. According to Disney+ boss Kevin Mayer, that’s a direct result of some coding problems in the platform’s architecture the Mouse plans on remedying as soon as possible. The Disney executive was on hand at Recode’s Code Conference Tuesday, where he told journalist Peter Kafka about immediate changes coming to the SVOD platform in the coming weeks.

“Some limits to the architecture that we had in place were made apparent to us,” Mayer said. “It had to do with a way we architected a piece of the app.” Mayer added he and the team were very surprised about the 10 million first-day signups, saying they “were very surprised by the size and the magnitude” of the launch day response.

He added, “We never had demand like we saw that day. We ran into issues with the architecture and we’re fixing that.” The architecture upgrades seem to be in addition to other changes the service will be making to its user interface, such as a “Continue Watching” section fans have been clamoring for.

In addition to his role as head of Disney’s direct-to-consumer offerings, Mayer also oversees Hulu, now that Disney has full operational control of the platform.

Ahead of the Disney+ launch, one spokesperson told us they hoped to alleviate any launch day issues after a successful beta test in the Netherlands. “Testing is a critical component of a successful product launch,” they told us. “So ahead of its global launch on November 12th, on September 12th, Disney+ launched in beta in the Netherlands to ready the technology for consumer usage at scale ahead of the November 12th launch.”

It’s unclear how many people participated in the beta test compared to the 10 million eager consumers that signed up earlier this month.

What have you been binging on Disney+? Let us know your playlist in the comments below or by hitting me up on Twitter at @AdamBarnhardt! If you haven’t checked out Disney+ yet and you want to give it a go, you can do that here.

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