HD-DVD Roundup

There's been a lot of information this week about the HD format 'war;' HD-DVD in particular.
Engadget has a post about the Michael Bay conspiracy theory. He and others have alluded to Microsoft taking actions to delay consumer acceptance of either HD format. I have helped to spread this idea on this site in previous posts. However, ArsTechnica has posted an article debunking this idea, saying Microsoft has no incentive to kill physical media and that Microsoft did not finance those payouts to the studios that switched over to HD-DVD back in August.
Black Friday results have both HD format camps claiming victory; while Gizmodo today posted an exhaustive look at the current state of HD-DVD, complete with an examination of the same movie on both formats.