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It looks like Disney+ is finally joining the online watch party game, allowing subscribers in different locations to enjoy its library together. Throughout the pandemic, several other services and sites have rolled out programs that lets people watch things as a group while they remained in separate homes. Earlier this month, reports suggested that the Disney+ service would be exploring a similar feature in the future, and it appears that day has already arrived.
Disney+ has started testing the new feature, “Groupwatch,” with some subscribers in Canada. This new feature, when it is made public in other markets, will allow up to six people to watch Disney+ together online, as long as they have a subscription. Disney hasn’t announced the new feature yet, but users from Canada have started sharing photos and information about Groupwatch on Reddit.
The Verge was able to confirm with Disney that Groupwatch is indeed being tested in Canada, solidifying the posts on Reddit. There isn’t any firm date for the official release of Groupwatch, but Disney is expecting to begin rolling it out in other markets sometime this fall.
Groupwatch will be the second major feature for Disney+ this year, following the debut of Premier Access at the beginning of the month. Premier Access is essentially an add-on that allowed users to watch the live-action Mulan movie, which was supposed to be released in theaters, for an extra $30. For now, Premier Access only exists for Mulan, but it could extend to other films in the future, depending on how successful it is.
“We are looking at Mulan as a one-off as opposed to saying there’s a new business windowing model we are looking at,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek. “That said, we find it very interesting to be able to take a new offering to consumers at that $29.99 price and learn from it and see what happens not only in terms of the uptick of the number of subscribers we got on the platform, but also the number of transactions we get on that PVOD offering.”
Will you be using the Disney+ Groupwatch feature when it arrives later this year? Let us know in the comments! If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.
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