WOW, the world has 2 new plugin formats today.
I guess this is exacly what we needed!
On Macs we now have:
TDM, RTAS, AAX (new AVID PT ONLY), MAS, VST 2.4, VST3, AU, ARA (melodyne enhancement)
Give those poor developers a break…
Ollie
What if … Avid would have announced VST and ASIO support!?
I don’t know if we would have laughed …
Luckely, their business is still aimed at selling hardware, so it makes sense for Avid to “lock in” their customers with yet another exclusive format.
Fredo
It will be interesting to see whether developers embrace AAX more quickly than they have VST3. i.e. almost not at all. 
Of course when they are forced to code AAX, I wonder how long they will continue with RTAS. I can imagine even more people screaming, when they find that they are locked in legacy land by the plugin developers, as well as Avid.
Maybe if Steinberg announced that from Nuendo 6 there would be no more VST2 support we would get more movement from developers. I still want to know what Program lists are, that have “replaced” Program Changes. This is one part of VST3 that no developer (AFAIK) has bothered to use yet. 
DG
Well, those who rely heavily on PT customers have no choice.
Though I have seen a comment from someone who spoke with the Waves people at AES, saying that AAX is not high priority on their list. Which I can hardly believe …
I also imagine that the UAD people are not very happy after all the effort they finaly put into supporting RTAS.
Difference is that VST2 is still supported, while TDM and RTAS are declared oficially dead.
Fredo
…officially dead with the next major (cough) update in (cough) 10 months or so…
RTAS too? Are you sure about that?
I think I read that PT10 is the last version that will have RTAS, because the RTAS format “can’t” be updated to 64bit, without a total re-write.
DG
I posted too quickly, I must admit:
ARA is NOT a new format but an additional standard enhancing other standards.
Actually VERY desirable (for plugs like iZotope RX).
Ollie