Breaking News: Paramount, Dreamworks Drop Blu-ray for HD-DVD

Wow, more HD format news. This will only serve to further confuse and discourage consumers from buying into any HD format.
Looks like Blockbuster may have to rethink that Blu-ray decision with exactly half of the major studios releasing only in HD-DVD now. From PRNewswire:

Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. and DreamWorks Animation SKG , each announced today that they will exclusively support the next-generation HD DVD format on a worldwide basis. The exclusive HD DVD commitment will include all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, as well as movies from DreamWorks Animation, which are distributed exclusively by Paramount Home Entertainment.

This means that recent big hits like Transformers, Shrek the 3rd, and Blades of Glory will not be releasing on Blu-ray. That's gotta hurt, Sony.
But why a sudden change? Both studios had been releasing it's films on both formats for some time now. In fact, Jeffery Katzenberg (the K in DreamworksSKG) reportedly told a Bank of America conference that he expected "neither" high-def DVD format to win the war "because they're not going to become the next platform." source
Bill Hunt over at The Digital Bits, a site I have trusted for 10 years now, has an interesting perspective regarding how Microsoft is having a hand in all this. From thedigitalbits:

Microsoft has paid DreamWorks and Paramount so much money that they've decided to join Universal in the HD-DVD exclusive camp. No kidding.

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