News > Michael Bay Gets Back into the HD vs Blu-Ray Debate

Written by David Morgan

You may recall that back during the summer, Michael Bay declared on his message board "No Transformers 2 for me!" based on what he felt was the unfair exclusion of Blu-Ray users by Paramount (Paramount opted to only release their films on HD DVD). Bay later claimed to have exaggerated his passion for the subject and had been convinced of HD DVD's merits.

Recently, a similar rant appeared on his official Web forum (Note: Link is not currently working, but it is the correct address according to a number of sources). Bay had the following to say in response to the question of why his films are being released solely in HD DVD:

Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios 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.

Variety reports that other observers have made similar claims about Microsoft, but says that industry sources deny that Microsoft has used any of its own money to persuade studios one way or the other. 

Some celebrities are passionate about the situation in Iraq, others care about international poverty, it's good that at least one is angry about important matters like home entertainment formats.