BIA: Hell's Highway 'Realism' trailerFilmmaker Michael Bay has expressed his dismay for the recent DVD iteration of his latest flick, 'Transformers'.
The filmmaker exclaims his frustration on the new Transformers DVD, which has sold 8.3 million copies since its release last week: "It's a good DVD. But not as good as it could have been," he says.
The sales total made Transformers the year's fastest-selling DVD in North America, according to Paramount Home Entertainment.
Not only does he criticise the quality of DVD, but further goes onto state his position on Blu-ray: "It's short-sighted and it has delayed consumers' moving to HD (home video)," he added.
"As a director, my critical eye is that Blu-ray is where my money is. Consumers are smart, and they are going to wait it out."
Blu-ray seems to be a major determinant to Michael Bay in terms of where his money "is at." Bay voiced his displeasure (again) that Transformers would not be available on Blu-ray and that he was rethinking his plan to direct a sequel--but is that what the format war thinks?
Source: Michaelbay.com

i want VHS back i hate format war Plus i am sick of HD.
is not what i thot of it would be really.
People like Michael could help make Blu-ray the standard movie format in Holywood! He seems to believe BD is the way to go and he also compliments us by saying that we're smart and will wait it out until everything comes onto BD format one year or another! He must have something against HD-DVD?!? We all know Transformers is to be released in that format as well, but I guess he's not happy with the result either?? May movie makers should make films for BDA associated companies and push the others that aren't to abandon the HD-DVD camp! ;p
atleast someone in the works has brains
@ sony1978a; back in the days there was also a 'video format war', if you're not ready for HD then stick with the tapes. Nobody's forcing you to watch high quality movies or play large capacity games with great eye candy graphics...in fact, if you've got a PS3....then you're a hypocrite! And make sure you keep coming back to this site to see if video tapes are coming back! As a retro thing or so...meh!
There is no format war! Blu Ray has WON!!!!! Just go down to your local retailer and see for yourself blu ray taking up 2 3rds of shelf space and thus out numbering HD DVD. Give up Toshiba
its kinda nice to hear through all the political crap with format wars that the man still has a voice.
I guess if you have even people like Michael Bay displeased with DVD versions of such movies then Blu-ray really needs to win this war.
Sony seriously needs to get a Blu-ray player down to 300$-249$ which I think will be the price that ends the war.. I remember dvd was out for a good couple years till it got into the 250$ zone n every1 started buying them..
What I think is Sony is so greedy that they want the PS3 to be the cheapest Blu-ray player so that they get more sales.. Dont believe me? well PS3 has been the cheapest BD player too this day.. Cuz i mean seriously take away the game playing, wifi, hdd, and all that crap from the $400 PS3 and you can have a BD player for what.. hdd 15$-wifi 15$-game system/cell/usb ports/card reader 70$=$300 (im just guessing)
but seriously take all that crap away and you can have an extremely cheap BD player..
That's true, squirrel. Since Spielberg has his name on the credits for Transformers, perhaps he can sway its release onto Blu-Ray.
I just wanted to say that this article is very poorly written w/ many grammer mistakes
Ohh sheet its the grammer police!!
Dv31I, actually, the HD-DVD release has the exact same audio track as the DVD release, and here's the kicker: "because they ran out of space on the disk"
Was disappointed with Transformers not coming out on Bluray; so I just rented a copy and made it into a MP4 file and put it on my PS3. This is what I have been doing with all movies that aren't released on BR. And no, they are for my personal use only and not distributed online or otherwise. I am tired of putting money into the studios hands who are deliberately holding back on releases on bluray just because they have received a monetary compensation to just put a movie on HDDVD for a certain number of months. Huge directors such as Bay and Speilberg could do alot to sway these studios that are stupid and short sighted.
See ive heard that hd-dvd had to drop the hd audio due to lack of space it couldnt fit on the hd-dvd , but he may like blu ray but the company he releases movies out for they tend to love hd-dvd so its sorta sad when movie directors/producers rather for their great projects to come out on a winning format when they have no choice but to release it on a losing format.
I specifically did not buy the DVD version to wait for a Blu-ray version to come out next year (you know it will).
UnasFortuna, you do know that you are describing piracy, right?
We all know BD is better, it's not anyone's fault except Paramounts, they're dumb. Mr Bay is just an educated director like so many others, but it's not the director or producer that puts the movie on a disc-format, it's the company you work for. How was he to know that Paramount and Dreamworks would puss out and make such a terrible decision? He couldn't.
SolsticeZero - No its not, for one hes not sharing it and two, he made a "backup" which is in right to due according to fair use.
i havent seen it yet, and im not going to till the bluray comes out. hopefully no more than a years wait : (
psn id: gingo.... when you have film directors saying they want blu ray then you know something must be good about it i was disappointed this wasn't coming on blu ray but i'll get over it
Mattchewie - He made a backup of a rental. That is still illegal. Whether it is for personal use or not, renting and coipying is still illegal
I'm waiting it out until the laser disc release!!
Nah, not really. I'm pretty upset like most others around here about not having this movie on blu ray. Once they see the sales #'s for Spidey 3 on blu ray maybe we'll see a Transformers release sooner than later. I'm sure Spielberg has some stroke left.
A good thing Micheal Bay realized it was a bad idea making TRANSFORMERS a HD-DVD exclusive. That's were he messed up, now he should only make movies with Blue-Ray.
I might be wrong but wasnt Bay talking smack about Blu ray before recently?
Screw dreamworks and HD DVD, release it on BluRay anyway! lol. I know, bad business practice. Isn't that how it goes though?
glad it only come out on dvd and hd-dvd, cause as a transformer fan this movie sucked. beside Bay is fickled anyways, first he stated he wanted it on blu-ray, then he changed him mind because of monetary reasons. now he's unhappy again, damm it man, make up your mind already!
give that man what he wants!!
Michael Bay you rule. Paramount...you SUCK!!
Good, about f***ing time someone realized DVD is way too cramped. Good thing MS is stupid or we'd be in trouble (30GB Halo 3 anyone?).
@Joe
You do realize that it was the blu-ray drive that made the PS3 so expensive. Sony where making a huge loss on PS3 with it being reported that it cost around $825 to produce and Sony still dropped the price of the PS3. Production cost are down but Sony is still losing money on every PS3 sold. It must cost a few hundred to produce blu-ray alone. Selling stand-alone blu-ray players for $250-$300 is possible but Sony won't make any profit so I don't see how selling products for less than they are worth is being greedy. A PS3's true value is probably around $800-$1000 and people complain when they pay $500.