3.5 Player's Handbook Outselling 4E PH!!

[Ourph]

In fact, ALL THREE 3.5 core books are outselling their 4E counterparts right now.

I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion from the list, since the 4e gift set (which contains the 4e PHB, DMG and MM) is outselling every 3.5 book on the list.

 

[Obryn]

A little part of me dies every time one of these threads pops up.

-O

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A little part of me dies every time one of these threads pops up.

-O

Let's just hope it wasn't anything important that died! It could, for example, have been the first cancer or something like that!

 

[proto128]

The problem with linking Amazon's bestseller list is that it's updated hourly. Within a span of about 30 minutes, the conditions of the OP disappeared and could no longer be verified, hence some of the "What do you mean, such and such is actually ahead" comments. In the future, if someone were to start another thread in a similar vein, it might be better if they linked a cached version of the page or otherwise obtained photographic proof.

TLDR: "Screenshot or it didn't happen."

 

[AnthonyRoberson]

I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion from the list, since the 4e gift set (which contains the 4e PHB, DMG and MM) is outselling every 3.5 book on the list.

Sorry. Maybe I should have stated it as every INDIVIDUAL 4E book...

 

[Dice4Hire]

How can any of this have any meaning when Amazon is not even selling the 3.5 core books? Only resellers in the marketplace are selling them.

 

[mach1.9pants]

All pretty irrelevant individual 3E PHB selling more than the individual 4E PHB, however they are both out sold by the 4E gift set meaning there are more 4E PHBs sold than 3E sold through Amazon.com.
Non story.

If I was going to stick with 3E I would e buying another 3E PHB 'cos they ain't making 'em any more. Just common sense.

EDIT: more interesting is how popular DnD is in the US/Ca compared to the UK (using the poor indicator of amazon sales)
4E PHB: 19,000
4E Gift Set: 93,000
3E PHB: 235,000
Canada:
4E PHB: 7,000
4E Gift Set: 5,000
3E PHB: 1500! You Canadian Grognards

 

[proto128]

How can any of this have any meaning when Amazon is not even selling the 3.5 core books? Only resellers in the marketplace are selling them.

It doesn't have any meaning. It's interesting.

 

[ggroy]

If this meme of "3.5E outselling 4E" has any validity to it, I would watch how the Pathfinder RPG core rulebook and bestiary are selling for several months after they are released.

It would be interesting to see whether the Pathfinder books take the place of the 3.5E core books in Amazon's top 25 list of gaming type books. If the Pathfinder core and bestiary books become "evergreen", there might be something to this meme of the "staying power" and popularity of the 3.5E rules at the expense of 4E in terms of book sales.

On the other hand, if the Pathfinder books are a "flash in the pan" and sink without a trace several months after they are released and/or are incapable of dethroning the 3.5E core books from Amazon's top 25 list .... will we see WotC dropping the 4E line and publishing the 3.5E era books again?

Another possiblity is Hasbro/WotC abruptly dropping the 4E line, and buying up Paizo for the purpose of releasing Pathfinder as a new 5th edition D&D.

 

[Ourph]

Sorry. Maybe I should have stated it as every INDIVIDUAL 4E book...

Even that caveat would still make the assertion highly disingenuous. It would be like saying oranges are outselling apples but only counting the people who buy 1 apple at a time and not counting the people who buy pre-packaged bags of 20 apples each.