Is there really any way to make June?

[Sammael]

Why not later than March? They're going to release all three core rulebooks at the same time (or month, June).

Because it takes a long time to print millions of books, and then ship them worldwide?

Remember that WotC used to have a small "off to the printers" blurb on their site every month or so. The books they announced through that were always the ones that were supposed to come out several (IIRC, at least 2 or 3) months later - and these books likely had a circulation in the tens of thousands, unlike the PH which measures in the millions.

 

[Ranger REG]

Because it takes a long time to print millions of books, and then ship them worldwide?

Why? Because WotC literally have one printer?

 

[Sammael]

OK. Presume WotC has ten thousand printers and they need to print two million PHs, half a million DMGs, and one million MMs.

How long do you think it will take for the books to be printed, bound, packaged, and shipped to stores (please include the customs procedure which can take up to 10 days in most countries) so that all stores will have received their stock by June 1st (so that they can go on sale by June 10th)?

 

[delericho]

I imagine the books will be out in June no matter what.

Agreed. The WotC marketing is now geared towards June, they have the printers booked, and the financial costs of missing those deadlines are huge.

So, the game will be out in June.

A better question might be, "will the game be ready in June, or would we be better waiting?" To which I suspect the answer is "no, a few more months would have been better," but I might of course be wrong.

 

[Hussar]

Considering what the first printing of the 3e PHB was like, I'll wait until the second printing thanks.

No early adopter here.

 

[TerraDave]

They are stuck with June.

But I fear the Errata.

 

[MojoGM]

Why? Because WotC literally have one printer?

There are only so many of them, and booking space in them is not always easy.

I work in publishing and we have to schedule reprints months in advance, if a hot title suddenly needs a reprint we have to "bump" one of our scheduled reprints and do the other title instead.

 

[mhensley]

No matter what, it will be out in Hungary in May.

 

[diaglo]

it will be released when they say. so June.

whether it is all that and a bag of chips. will be determined by july.

 

[kenmarable]

Eh, no, they don't. They have 3 months, tops. I very much doubt they can send the finalized copies to the printers later than March if they want to achieve the June deadline.

Don't forget layout/typesetting. They aren't going to be selling hardbound Word documents.

So, yeah, the window for changes (as opposed to minor edits) is probably closing fast. But as to how soon it closes, only the folks at WotC know for sure what those deadlines are. I imagine they all know, very, very well what those deadlines are.