HD Announcement Developments

The internet is busy today with reaction to yesterday's surprise announcement regarding Paramount and Dreamworks exclusive support for HD-DVD.
As posted earlier today, Michael Bay fired off his little response to Paramount now that his recent film Transformers will evidently be getting an HD-DVD release only.
The Blu-ray Disc Association and it’s 3 major backing studios made a public response today saying they were unveiling "an aggressive global Blu-ray Disc release strategy, including 29 new release and 'must-have' catalog titles that runs through the end of the 2007 calendar year."
Evidently the Blu-ray studios are really going to step it up in regards to capabilities and features offered on upcoming Blu-ray releases.
A New York Times article was posted that was interesting that reported on the alleged Microsoft financing of this change of heart, which Microsoft is denying.
Also, they are pointing out that

The two studios may have left themselves wiggle room, however. Paramount’s agreement to use only HD DVD is limited to only 18 months. And Paramount noted that no films directed by Steven Spielberg were included in the deal “as his films are not exclusive to either format.” Mr. Spielberg is a co-founder of DreamWorks SKG, a unit of Paramount.

Reaction from the public does not seem to be positive. Angry video collectors are emailing the studios and making their thoughts known on various internet forums and blogs.
"So Far, Consumers Lose In Battle Between Blu-ray, HD-DVD" is the headline over at NY1.
This post over at Crave seems to sum it up nicely.

"The problem right now is that you're almost going to have to pick your format by the studios you like. The impact may ultimately be that people just don't buy any of the next-gen players. 'Shrek' is going to look pretty good on DVD, so you just buy the DVD and call it a day."