14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone knows (or at least suspects) that huge amounts of money are involved in just about every move in the movie industry, and even more so when we're talking about content distribution media, Blu-ray and HD DVD, to be more precise. However, it would seem that things might be a lot worse than we had imagined, at least if we were to believe that there's any truth in Michael Bay's latest statement (read rant) on this subject.
Thus, after being questioned by a fan regarding the availability of his movies in the Blu-ray format on his personal "Ask Michael Bay" sub-forum , the director who brought us "Transformers" lost his temper and...well, see for yourselves what he had to say: "What you don't understand is corporate politics. 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."
As some of you might know, this is not the first time when Bay has a bone to pick with HD DVD. Thus, back in August 2007, when Paramount announced that it had decided to go HD DVD only (a rather strange decision, engulfed in rumors regarding huge pay-offs), the director also had a brief moment of "insanity", when it lashed out against the deal and declared that he wanted all his movies in Blu-ray format as well. However, back then, he quickly retracted (or rather "sweetened") his statement, probably under pressure from the movie studio.
But is there any truth to Bay's statement? Well, although the director has not provided any evidence to back-up his accusations, the truth of the matter is that his "conspiracy theory" might have some truth to it, if we take a look at the bigger picture. But on the other hand, this is a guy who made a movie about giant robots turning into cars, so you should really take it with a pinch of salt.