Our colleagues over at CVG.com have picked up on a rather interesting post on director Michael Bay's website. The Transformers mastermind has waded into the HD format war, saying that Microsoft wants both the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats to be unsuccessful.
"Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads," says Bay, who signs off as exactly that.
"That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar cheques to studios [to] just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu-ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth."
Serious allegation
Well you can see where his loyalties lie, but the allegation that Microsoft has been paying studios to embrace HD DVD is serious.
Bay seems extremely convinced of his stance. "They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth."
If the main allegation in his attack is true - that Microsoft wants to stall next-gen disc adoption - then Microsoft might have to hold back for some time. While most are happy with DVD playback quality, Microsoft's main barrier to download bliss is undoubtedly the width of our broadband pipes. How many years until we're actually able to download a movie without having to think about it the night before?
As well as Transformers, Bay is also famed for his direction of Pearl Harbor and Armageddon.
