ROTTEN TOMATOES: Michael Bay Exposes Vast Microsoft Conspiracy

Michael Bay Exposes Vast Microsoft Conspiracy

by Jeff Giles | December 07, 2007

Summary

Have you been holding off on purchasing hi-def components for your home theater because you're confused by the whole HD DVD vs. Blu-ray conundrum? Michael Bay feels your pain -- and he says it's all Microsoft's fault. Back to Article

(61-80 of 91 posts) | Reply

dayfalljesse writes:
on Dec 08 2007 04:33 PM

In reply to this comment (#1335175)
vallejo_7o7, you have to be out of your mind. If you believe that HD-DVD looks like a DVD upsample, it leads me to believe you've never actually viewed any HD content besides screencaps on a Blu-Ray endorsing website.

I dont have a preference towards either, so I can unbiasedly say that there isnt a big difference in the two formats, at least from a consumer standpoint. I have a 55" plasma screen and have viewed HD and Blu-Ray content on it, and 98% of viewers will not be able to tell a difference. The truth of the matter is, there is only so much viewable compression you can squeeze out of a source that will be indiscernible to the human eye on the HD tv sets we can purchase now.

I do agree with the fact that HD discs are cheaper to reproduce, and are more easily adaptable to technology advances. But as far as preference goes, I could care less. Give us a damn affordable dual player, or have one of the technologies killed off.

Oh, and Michael Bay is a moron. Let someone else make transformers 2 then. Directors like this are idiots - they are giving up a whole, complete revenue stream because of this pitiful format war...

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arcadefire325 writes:
on Dec 08 2007 06:03 PM

yeah, 360 was such a failure that they declared Sony the loser out the competition between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. that is the definition of failure. i guess all my friends who bought PS3 were wrong compared to the ones who bought 360s. yup, i was completely incorrect in my assessment of the PS3. it didn't suck at all.

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asudevil1 writes:
on Dec 08 2007 07:08 PM

Is that the reason why the PS3 is outselling the 360 in Japan and the US? Yeah the PS3 is such a failure with its 1% deffective. How many people had to get their ps3 replaced over and over again? NO ONE, how many had to with their 360s? ABOUT 40% OF ALL OWNERS. God you have no idea what you are talking about.

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buttamack writes:
on Dec 08 2007 09:33 PM

why does everyone like to bash on Michael Bay. He makes entertaining movies. He'll never make anything like No Country for Old Men or anything like that, but we need the Michael Bay's in the world so that we appreciate the cohen's of the world that much better. And it's entertainment anyway. I'd rather sit and watch Bad Boys, Armageddon and Transformers over and over again rather than some sappy love story

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Chipotle writes:
on Dec 08 2007 11:18 PM

In reply to this comment (#1340328)
The PS3 may be outselling the Xbox 360 in Japan (Sony outselling an American company there? Shocking!), but the current worldwide sales are 14.14M X360s to 6.73M PS3s, and that's 9.18M X360s in the US to 2.75M PS3s here. The Xbox 360s do have a notorious failure rate, yes, but the PS3 had a notorious lack of flagship games. While this is obviously anecdotal, the house I've been living in had all three "current gen" consoles and a fair number of gamers living there or visiting, and the Xbox got the most use by far. Up until the current "Ratchet and Clank," it was pretty rare for the PS3 to be asked to do anything but run the Folding@Home client.

The most stable, fastest, and downright prettiest hardware available just doesn't do you a lot of good without software people want, and historically that just hasn't been happening for the PS3. Combine that with the fact that it's far and away the most expensive console out there (still), and you don't have a recipe for improvement. It seems like Sony -- and I suppose PS3 fans? -- are expecting it to win based on being the cheapest Blu-Ray player out there, but unless you also just love love love Blu-Ray over HD-DVD -- whose players are already noticeably cheaper -- that ain't gonna cut it, either.

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asudevil1 writes:
on Dec 08 2007 11:36 PM

The PS3 is not the most expensive console, it is even with the Xbox, plus if you want the ability to watch high def movies it would cost you MORE to have a XBOX, not to mention the crap Xbox live. And according to IGN.com, PS3 has more 5 star exclusive titles in its FIRST year than Xbox in its 2 year. How is the xbox the most stable, fastest and prettiest hardware available? I would say that any console that only hase first person shooters, breaks down three times, and looks like a white bookend is far from the most stable, fastest and prettiest console.

P.S. CHipotle so i guess your friends equal everyone? Me and my roommate own all three next gen consoles and the PS3 is the most used because it is by far superior to the Xbox. Also explain why blue ray movies are outselling hddvds 4 to 1 or closer to 5 to 1, explain that xbot.

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vallejo_7o7 writes:
on Dec 09 2007 10:08 AM

In reply to this comment (#1336059)
guess what buddy, i had to send my xbox 360 back to microsoft twice. thats 5 weeks at a time. thats a crappy product to me buddy. ive never had one problem with my ps3. the blu-ray never stopped or anything.

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knowingtoast85 writes:
on Dec 09 2007 10:11 AM

Has nobody mentioned that the pornography industry signed an exclusive deal with HD-DVD?

You can't get much more decisive a win than that endorsement. Blu-Ray is sunk.

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vallejo_7o7 writes:
on Dec 09 2007 10:43 AM

In reply to this comment (#1340121)
aight. you right about there not being a huge difference between the two for the average consumer. but i sell and install HD plasmas, both high end and low end, with 5.1, 7.1 and even 8.1 surround sound systems. and been doing so for that last 5 years with a independent company who's been doing it for over 10 years. which is why i've going to CES. so basically, i know my ****. and it is true that it comes down to the consumer. but as an experienced person in HD, i like Blu-ray much more than HD DVD, in AUDIO and VIDEO QUALITY. maybe it's a little bias against HD DVD only because they just broke into 1080p realm whereas Blu-ray started out with 1080p. so from the get go i was for Blu-ray and never got off. and as for as your 55" plasma, i hope your not talking to little boys at Best Buys and Magnolia because those guys are garbage and they are literally high school kids. so don't let them touch your system because my guess is that you spent a lot of money on it and you don't want children playing with your equipment. and what the hell is an "up sample?" i said "up scale/ up conversation" and like one of those guys mentioned earlier that his dvd upscaler looks pretty damn good. and there are a lot of those type of dvd players out there. thats why i say HD DVD looks like a DVD upscale. no offense to you.

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ruloaas writes:
on Dec 09 2007 04:14 PM

You know what? Michael Bay is a terrible filmmaker, but that doesn't make him wrong, or a liar. I believe in him, spectacularly untalented as he is. It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has pulled **** like this.

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clamman27 writes:
on Dec 09 2007 09:31 PM

In reply to this comment (#1335155)
Like WHAT horror films? Nice pigeon-holing of an entire genre there, bud. Horror films may not be YOUR cup of tea, but a lot of other people like them.

I liked ID4... a good summer sci-fi movie... not quite Close Encounters but I'll take it over Shamalmamadingdong's Signs. Go ahead---flame me. I'm ready.

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clamman27 writes:
on Dec 09 2007 09:34 PM

In reply to this comment (#1335342)
That's not entirely accurate at all. In terms of content, HD DVD is delivering more of a next gen experience than Blue Ray. Blue Ray has the advantage of capacity, but that's not even an issue now, if it ever will be.

The whole format war is because Microsoft and Sony had to compete to see who had the bigger penis. If Microsoft had the balls it would have bundled HD DVD as part of the 360 and HD DVD sales would be better. A large percentage of Blue Ray sales are PS3 owners. Microsoft didn't back the wrong horse, they just didn't really get in the race.

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asudevil1 writes:
on Dec 09 2007 11:07 PM

Vivid actually signed a deal with Bluray and sony would not let them make the dvds so they are still using blu-ray but are using bootleg copies. So you are wrong knowingtoast, not to mention people will not buy hdporn.

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renny2077 writes:
on Dec 10 2007 04:53 AM

There goes Michael's shot at directing Halo....

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minderbinder writes:
on Dec 11 2007 08:23 AM

"If Microsoft had the balls it would have bundled HD DVD as part of the 360 and HD DVD sales would be better."

And since the price of the 360 would have been much higher, they wouldn't have sold nearly as many of them by this point.

While HD-DVD may still lose, it's hard to fault MS on their strategy so far. They beat PS3 to market by a year, prices have been lower with sony only recently catching up (which means they're probably taking even bigger losses with the lower price). I'm skeptical PS3 will ever catch up to the 360's user base, if anyone has a shot it's probably nintendo.

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asudevil1 writes:
on Dec 12 2007 09:41 AM

Minderbinder, PS3 is almost close to catching up to the xbox already. you fail to remember that in japan alone the PS3 is outselling the xbox 15-1. In Europe PS3 is outselling the xbox 6-1. And now the PS3 is outselling the xbox 1.5-1. The xbox is starting to die and now the owners are starting to see the light and buying the vastly superior PS3

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minderbinder writes:
on Dec 12 2007 12:21 PM

In reply to this comment (#1350601)
What's your source on those numbers?

Doing a google search, it looks like Wii was the biggest seller in the post thanksgiving sales, with 360 pretty close behind. Sony didn't release numbers, but only denied that they were being outsold by as much as MS claimed.

Analysts seem to think that the same pattern will hold through the holidays.

If you have a source of real numbers showing the PS3 catching up any time soon, I'd like to see it.

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minderbinder writes:
on Dec 12 2007 12:23 PM

Actually, if anyone knows a site that keeps updated on total sales and current sales levels, I'd like to see it.

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asudevil1 writes:
on Dec 12 2007 03:18 PM

IGN is a great source, they just posted an article about how the PS3 is doing really well in Europe. Novembers numbers in Japan alone were like 500,000 PS3s more than Wiis, and xbox in third with like 30,000 sales. Xbox is starting to lose their market. 90% of 360 owners were original xbox owners, and since the PS2 dominated the market last cycle that means that the Xbox does not have a stranglehold on the market and the PS3 is picking up ground not to mention that the next price cut in Feb. and the release of MSG4 is going to push the PS3 over the top and officially send the xbox into third place. Sony is the only company with a positive outlook in the future, Nintendo is starting to lose ground by the sheer fact that they do not have enough systems and that their games are low quality. PS3 already has more quality exclusive games than the Xbox and that is only going to continue into next year.

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Atropos1 writes:
on Dec 15 2007 09:06 AM

I think he's entirely wrong. It's exactly what it looks like, two conglomerations of companies come out with nearly identical technologies and both want their format to be the successor of DVD. One has more storage space, the other is cheaper.

That guy who said he installs home theater systems and has done so for five years, and says that Blu-Ray's audio and video are better is grossly misinformed. The video is friggin identical on the two formats. Blu-Ray sometimes has more space for audio, but an uncompressed track is in fact mathmatically identical to a Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master track (they sound identical, too). So forget about the audio. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are pretty well matched. The only case I know of where the space restriction as compared to Blu-Ray made a difference was in the Transformers HD-DVD, where they couldn't fit a Dolby TrueHD track onto the disc. In that movie, it didn't even matter because the DD mix was so friggin excellent that it beat out any and every TrueHD and uncompressed PCM mix in a recent awards show.

And by the way HD-DVD did not just break into the 1080p market, they did so quite a while ago. Not that it even matters, because digital displays like LCD and Plasma can't display an interlaced image. They de-interlace it into 1080p, or 720p if they can't do the 1080p. An HD CRT Projection television is the only T.V that can display a true interlaced image, and on the one that I own (a 52" Toshiba Theaterwide HD), 1080i looks quite a bit better than any digital display running in 1080p that I've seen. And I've looked.

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