Several TUAW readers have reported after seeing midnight showings of Disney-Pixar's new and highly-rated movie WALL•E that when the robot boots up, he makes the standard Mac startup sound. That's not the only Apple connection with the movie.
Of course, Steve Jobs is the largest single shareholder of Disney after Pixar was purchased by the entertainment giant for $7.4 billion in 2006. He still serves on a steering committee for Pixar that oversees the Disney-Pixar animation businesses, and he's on the Disney Board of Directors. I'm not sure, but he may be tapped to be the first CEO of BuyNLarge...
WALL•E's job is to wander around an abandoned Earth, pick up trash, and compact it into small blocks. However, when he finds something nostalgic that he likes, such as an iPod or Rubik's cube, he keeps it.
The object of WALL•E's desire, EVE, was actually designed with the assistance of Apple Senior VP of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive, who apparently spent a day with the Pixar team in 2005 consulting on the ultra-sleek floating robot.
Thanks to Matt for the heads-up and inspiration for this post!
Posted Mar 13th 2008 10:00AM by Michael Rose Filed under: iTS
Silicon Alley Insider noted that Disney CEO Bob Iger announced some numbers for video and movie sales via iTunes since the 2006 launch. With about 4 million movies delivered via the store, and another 40 to 50 million video/TV show sales, that's a lot of bits. SAI isn't impressed, though; writer Peter Kafka runs the math and comes up with a revenue number of about $123 million -- not a blip on the screen for the conglomerate that shelled out $7.4 billion for a renegade animation studio with a notoriously idiosyncratic part-time CEO.
What Kafka does acknowledge, and what makes digital delivery via iTunes worth Disney's while (other than the obvious "Steve told us to do it"), is that this is incremental revenue that Disney probably wouldn't have captured otherwise -- Netflix or Blockbuster would have gotten the rentals, and relatively few DVDs would have been purchased to make up the digital slack. What did the revenue numbers look like in the first years of the VCR, DVD or cable pay-per-view offerings? Probably also on the less-substantial side, and yet those businesses are gigantic today.
You can click on the pic above (or hit the Read link below) for a bigger version of the image, to take it all in. The vintage Popular Mechanics on the wall behind the wooden monstrosity that would later become the Apple is a nice touch, as is the multiple pizza boxes behind him.
I heard a few times that Disney's new casual MMO Pirates of the Caribbean Online went live yesterday, but MacWorld reminds us that it's out for both Windows and Mac. Metacritic doesn't have too many reviews up as of this writing, but our friends at Joystiq found it to be a fun, easy to get into MMO when they played an earlier build of it, so if you're craving some pick-up-and-play pirate MMO gaming, it might be just what yer lookin' for, matey.
Unless you're running Leopard, that is. Currently, the game's system requirements only list Tiger, and while MacWorld doesn't know whether Leopard is supported or not, they're not alone-- I called Laurie at "Pirates Online Customer Support" (boy, Disney sure poured a lot of money into this one), and while she was very helpful, she didn't know whether Leopard was supported or not. I threw a note into their system to try and check, and if I hear back, I'll update the post.
Of course, you could just try downloading and running it yourself in Leopard, but then again this is only one day after Halloween, and running unsupported Disney software on your Mac is pretty scary -- might be a little much along with everything else.
Update: Never mind-- our illustrious commenters say it runs just fine in Leopard. Keelhaul away!
I'm not sure how closely you're all following E3 (the big gaming convention going on this week in LA), but one of the tidbits of news dropped by some little company named Microsoft last night is Disney movies are now available for download on Xbox 360's Live Marketplace. Finally, just like all of us iTunes users have been doing for months, Xbox owners can enjoy Disney flicks via digital distribution.
But wait-- the Xbox flicks are available, right now... in HD. Wha? Is Microsoft's CEO the largest Disney shareholder and on their Board of Directors? Did someone from Microsoft run the animation company that turned Disney animation around? Why are Xbox 360 owners watching these movies in HD when we can't do the same on iTunes?
We've speculated before that HD movies would be coming to iTunes, but right now, Xbox 360 owners can see every single hair on Ariel's head, and iTunes purchasers cannot. What's wrong with this picture?
Forbes reports that Disney's iTunes sales have been doing especially well. Net profits for the quarter ending March 31st this year were up 27%, boosted by strong iTunes sales including about 23.7 million TV episodes and 2 million movies. The article doesn't say but I'm pretty sure that those numbers reflect total historic iTunes sales rather than just sales for this past quarter. If they were, they'd deserve a fully upper case WOOT rather than the modest woot I issue on this news.
We all bemoan the fact that most of the movies in the iTunes Store come from Disney, and its various studios, however, it looks like Starz has real reason to complain. According to this press release Starz, a cable movie channel, had signed two agreements with Disney which give Starz the power to approve of online sales of Disney movies before they happen. Starz has exclusive rights to air Disney movies, and they argue that Disney didn't check with them before agreeing to distribute movies via iTunes, and other online services.
Since His Steveness is the largest Disney shareholder, and the CEO of our favorite fruit company, I bet he is none too pleased with this news.
Posted Feb 1st 2007 10:00PM by Erica Sadun Filed under: iTS
After just three months, Disney has sold more than 1.3 million movies through the iTunes store. Fears that digital sales would cannibalize DVD sales led to recent disagreements with retail partners like Target, however, those fears seem to be unfounded as brick and mortar DVD sales remain healthy. Experts do expect a long-term downturn in DVD sales as the market matures and consumers turn to other viewing models including iTunes and Netflix, but for now DVD sales of titles such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest have reached record highs.
It seems to me that there are two kinds of movie buyers these days: those going for convenience and instant gratification, for whom the iTunes store is the perfect fit, and those looking for long-term durability, who want the portability, device independence, and physical reality that DVDs offer.
As far as TV shows go, Disney has sold more than 20 million downloads in addition to their movie titles.
Joystiq is reporting that Disney has released a Mac version of Toontown, an MMO cartoon game where users can create cartoon characters, join quests to save Toontown, race carts and even hurl wedding cakes at each other. The game seems to be fairly successful so far, as over 15 million Windows users have already been busy doing the online cartoon character thing. The Mac version is a Universal Binary so everyone on our side of the fence can play along, and the monthly subscription fee is $9.95. Of course a free, though short, three-day trial is available as well.
The Business section of the CentreDaily reports that Target may pull its Disney-based in-store promotions. In a nutshell, Target doesn't like that Disney is selling movies at the iTunes store for less than it charges brick & mortar retailers. Supposedly Target has already removed displays for Cars. In retaliation, Disney may not ship "Dead Man's Chest" DVDs to Target.
Now, now boys. Can't we just all get along?
As for me, I saw Cars at Walmart for just over 13 bucks and snatched up a copy rather than download the $12.99 version at iTunes, which I'd actually been planning to do. iTunes may cost less, but you don't get that nifty actual disk and all the extras. (Of course, you don't get all the stupid can't-forward-through-the-FBI-warnings either.)
Today's edition of 'yes they did/no they didn't' is brought to you by Wal-Mart, the New York Post and Reuters. As we knew, Wal-Mart is the largest DVD retailer (at least in America), with 40% of the market. Obviously, a player with that large of a stake in the game might not be too happy when a music download service with as much momentum as the iTunes Store announces movie downloads, and the New York Post printed a piece confirming just as much. According to the Post, Wal-Mart returned "cases and cases" of DVDs to Disney after suffering a panic attack over word of the iTS. Never one to stop at throwing product back in just one client's face, Wal-Mart then went on to throw a temper tantrum at the Hollywood studios, "overtly threatened to retaliate" by ordering fewer movies if they shook hands with the iTS. One has to wonder what happens when Wal-Mart doesn't get ice cream for desert.
On the other side of this coin, however, Reutersprinted comments from a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, saying "we are not dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers." Setting aside the discussion of who competition truly benefits, a Disney spokeswoman also stated she was not familiar with the NYP claims, though Reuters failed to mention whether this spokeswoman has anything to do with the shipping department.
It's a twisted web these players are weaving, and we'll (do our best to) stay on top of who's saying what.
It looks like a few people, other than me, are buying movies from the iTunes Store. Disney's Bob Iger (which I think is a great last name) says that Disney made $1 million in revenue during the first week that their movies were available in the iTunes Store. This translates to about 125,000 movies being downloaded, and keep in mind that there are no free movies, unlike TV shows. Each of those movies was bought and paid. Iger went on to say that he expects Disney will make $50 million during the first year of availability in the iTunes Store.
I imagine this will get other studios interested in getting their archives up on the iTunes Store sooner rather than later.
Do you remember way back in May when we told you that ABC was experimenting with streaming some of their primetime shows on the web for free (with commercials, of course). It looks like the experiment was a success because according to ABC the streaming shows were viewed 11 million times in 2 months as compared to 6 million iTunes downloads over 9 months.
Does this mean that people are willing to watch commercials if the TV shows are free? Well, duh.
Steve Jobs told shareholders this week that, in light of Disney's acquisition of Pixar, he would actually be spending
more time at Apple, in part because he'll be relinquishing his CEO position at Pixar in a couple of weeks once the
merger finishes. Many have been speculating that Mr. Jobs would be spending more time at Disney, but he publicly
responded "that couldn't be further from the truth... It'll require less of my time than Pixar did."
This should be good news for anyone concerned about Mr. Jobs' continued involvement with Apple.
Disney announced
today that it will make episodes of both Lost and Desperate Housewives available for free via the web,
starting in June. The files will feature "chapters" to let users quickly jump ahead in the episode, though
not past the embedded commercials. The article merely says that the shows will be available "...on the
internet," which sounds like they mean outside of the iTMS. Both Lost and Desperate
Housewives have been big sellers for Apple, so this seems like an odd move for Disney (they are calling the project
a two month experiment). I can't imagine that the shows will be available for free via the web while they're still
$1.99US in the iTMS, so we'll see what happens.
Several TUAW readers have reported after seeing midnight showings of Disney-Pixar's new and highly-rated movie WALL•E that when the robot boots up, he makes the standard Mac startup sound. That's not the only Apple connection with the movie.
Silicon Alley Insider noted
I'm not sure how closely you're all following E3 (the big gaming convention going on this week in LA), but one of the tidbits of news dropped by some little company named Microsoft last night is Disney movies are now available for 
Forbes reports that Disney's 
We all bemoan the fact that most of the movies in the iTunes Store come from Disney, and its various studios, however, it looks like Starz has real reason to complain. According to t
After just three months, Disney has sold 
The Business section of the CentreDaily 
Today's edition of 'yes they did/no they didn't' is brought to you by Wal-Mart, the New York Post and Reuters. As we 
Steve Jobs told shareholders this week that, in light of Disney's acquisition of Pixar, he would actually be spending
more time at Apple, in part because he'll be relinquishing his CEO position at Pixar in a couple of weeks once the
merger finishes. Many have been speculating that Mr. Jobs would be spending more time at Disney, but he publicly
responded "that couldn't be further from the truth... It'll require less of my time than Pixar did."
Disney 
