Despite Hollywood's growing support for Sony's Blu-Ray technology, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive reaffirmed Microsoft's support for HD DVD.

Microsoft's next generation operating system, Windows Vista, which will be launched at the end of 2006, is going to be compatible with Toshiba's HD DVD format, Ballmer stated. Also, the Redmond giant settled to introduce support for HD DVD as soon as more compatible drives arrive on the market, so initially, the format will not be supported in Windows Vista.

Microsoft stated earlier that it had chosen the HD DVD format because, in their point of view, it's more effective and easy to integrate with a PC. Also, MS claims HD DVD has some real advantages and that they are working with Toshiba to promote the concept.

Ballmer contradicts MGM and Warner's statement of Blu-Ray only agreement, saying that these studios have the technology that supports both major next generation formats.

As long as HD DVD and Blu-Ray keep competing, users will be disoriented and won't know which player format to buy. Although over 20 million Blu-Ray players will be available on the market in 2006 with the help of Sony's PlayStation 3, the adoption of a certain format will be slow in this case and users may look for video content elsewhere.