Wizards seems to be trying to make DnD Next attractive to Pathfinder players but all the PF players I know either don't know about DnDnext and/or don't care.
Statements like this always kinda confuse me.
Of course they are trying to make it appeal to PF players. They're trying to make it appeal to
anyone who might be into it.
They are happy with PF and are not going to switch. So what is the purposes of making a game that your target group won't play and which some of your current customers don't like.
IME, people's home gaming lives are far less caring about system than we seem to be on the internet. (Still an issue, but there is much less crusading and planting of feet.) The biggest draw for a fantasy tabletop game is the power of network externalities. That is, you get far more value from a game which everyone around you is playing (or willing to play.) I know that there are places where Pathfinder has taken that mantle of
THE Game from D&D (I live in one.) However, I suspect that D&D still has the cachet to retake that spot...
if the new edition can appeal to all those gamers enough to (re)create a larger value through those externalities (allowing folks of differing edition to game together).
Wizards is making DnD Next like 3.5 and PF but we already have those. It just seems so pointless.
I must say, as someone who is relatively edition-agnostic, I don't find Next to be particularly like 3.5, nor particularly like 4e, and not particularly like AD&D, or even BECMI. (It is, of course, closer to any of those than say...FATE.) I find it a very nice (if rough around the edges, yet) middle ground.