With the High Definition disc format war still far from over, this is likely the main reason that is putting consumers off from replacing their DVD player with a HD disc player. Now, it looks like Microsoft is the main culprit behind the ongoing war going by what Director Michael Bay said on his official forums in his reponse to complaints about why Transformers is not available on Blu-ray, according to this PC World report.
According to Bay, the reason Microsoft exclusively supports HD DVD despite Blu-ray's superior format is to cause confusion in the market until they perfect its own rival - digital downloads. Effectively, Microsoft wants both formats to fail, which is its dirty secret to move people towards HD digital downloads. He also pointed out that Microsoft is even handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios to exclusively use the HD DVD format.
So far Paramount and DreamWorks Animation announced back in August that they would exclusively use the HD DVD format. Apart from Warner, the studios that back Blu-ray have no intention of taking on HD DVD, especially Sony Pictures with Sony behind the Blu-ray format.
From what I can see, Microsoft's plan could also fail if dual-format Blu-ray & HD DVD players manage to become reasonably priced enough over time to take off, much like how dual-format DVD ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ writers became the answer to the DVD recordable format war.
Further info can be read in this PC World source.
