Michael Bay on Microsoft's "dirty secret"

Film director Michael Bay believes that Microsoft is promoting confusion in the HD format war in order to usher in digital downloads.

"Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads," he said in a forum post on his Web site.

In August, Bay posted an angry response to the news that Paramount had decided to release his Transformers film exclusively on HD DVD, threatening not to deliver a Transformers sequel - a threat he later retracted.

Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that Paramount received a rumoured USD 150 million incentive from HD DVD promoters to make the switch.

The director of films such as Armageddon and Bad Boys said that corporate politics are involved.

"That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out 100 million dollar checks to studios just [to] embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, superior Blu-ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital download.

"Time will tell and you will see the truth."