You can keep repeating this, but, it really doesn't make it true.
I don't think there ever was any actual official numbers to back up the claim. The common consensus is mostly that yes, during 4e' last time, when there wasn't any new content and Mearls et al was working on 5e, PF did outsell 4e. But don't think it's 100% confirmed. Either way spinning it as PF generally was outselling D&D seems like a mischaracterization.
There wasn't any new content?
The truth will out.
2011 Releases for 4e:
(I'm sure I missed some stuff)
Book of Vile Darkness December 20, 2011
Player’s Option: Heroes of the Feywild November 15 2011
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium April 19 2011 September 20 2011
Madness of Gardmore Abbey boxed super-adventure September 20 2011
Neverwinter Campaign Guide Forgotten Realms August 16 2011
Player's Option Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier July 19 2011
Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale Box set June 21 2011
The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond. Box set May 17 2011
Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow April 19 2011
Deluxe Dungeon Master's Screen February 15
As of late 2011 4e was still putting out players option books, and campaign setting guides.
Hardly unsupported.
In
January 2012, Wizards of the Coast announced that a new edition of the game, at the time referred to as
D&D Next, was under development. 4e had only been out for 4 years at this point.
Why would they do this? Lets go back in time one year...
Pathfinder had already begun to outsell 4e
On Merit in
2011.
Top 5 RPGs--Q2 2011
Top 5 RPGs--Q2 2011
Also, Lisa Stevens has no reason to lie here:
paizo.com - Community / Paizo Blog / Tags / Paizo / Auntie Lisa's Story Hour
Paizo Publishing's 10th Anniversary Retrospective—Year 8 (2010) - Following Up on Our Success - Thursday, November 1, 2012
This will be news to most readers: By the end of 2010, the Pathfinder RPG had already overtaken D&D as the bestselling RPG. It would take almost half a year before industry magazine ICv2 first reported it, and several quarters more before some people were willing to accept it as fact, but internally, we already knew it was true. We'd heard it from nearly all of our hobby trade distributors; we'd heard it from buyers at book chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders; we could see it using industry sales trackers such as BookScan; we were even regularly coming out on top on Amazon's bestseller charts. Each individual market we sold in had us either tied with or outselling D&D, and none of those sources counted our considerable direct sales on paizo.com. Put all of those things together, and it was clear: Pathfinder had become the first RPG ever to oust D&D from top spot.
Yes, it happened. While WotC was actively supporting and pushing 4e as
the edition of D&D; Pathfinder outsold them on merit.
As someone who did not play anything "D&D" 4e or PF1 during that time, I have no axe to grind. I could actually care less about either version of D&D.
I don't understand why some have such a hard time accepting the fact that Pathfinder outsold 4e on merit. Certainly by early 2011. Timelines are a thing. It's quite straightforward.
As a result of which Ha$bro/WotC made the decision to cut their losses, and move to a new edition of D&D to right the ship.
I think WotC saw early on that 4e had split the fanbase; that PF1 was taking big chunks out of their market share, and it wasn't slowing down.
Perhaps 4e essentials was intended to rectify this?? But PF1 kept on chugging. By late 2010, early 2011, the writing was on the wall, and someone at WotC or Ha$bro made the decision to go to a new edition.
Which culminated in the D&D next announcement in 2012, when new product for 4e actually did fall off a cliff...
Personally, I would like to know who made the call to switch to D&D next/5e. That was a ruthlessly pragmatic business decision that had to have been made very early in 2011, when they were still had plenty of 4e products in the pipeline to roll out for the year.
That took some serious stones and foresight to make that call.
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