PHB2 sold out!

[TwinBahamut]

Is there any actual proof beyond Internet rumor that Nintendo actually did this?

vagabundo beat me to this, but no, there is no proof supporting it. In fact, there have been countless good explanations given for the shortage that directly contradict that "theory". Put simply, Nintendo made a huge mistake in overproducing the Gamecube early in that console generation, and paid for it. They wanted to avoid that situation with the Wii, so their early productions runs of the Wii leaned on the conservative side, only to see far greater demand than they were anticipating. Thus, shortage.

 

[Cadfan]

For what its worth, I don't draw any conclusions from the PHBII selling out its printing.

First, at least for the life of this edition, its an evergreen book. Of course it was going to sell out its first printing. It will probably sell out its second, sooner or later. Maybe even a third. PHBIIs will be being purchased three years from now, and no one wants to be storing them this far in advance. So new print runs will occur.

Second, I didn't buy the PHBII because the entire contents of the PHBII is available on the DDI, in the character builder and in the compendium. This has got to have an effect on sales, but WotC did still get money out of me for the DDI subscription, and the fact that books like the PHBII were going to be in the compendium was a big part of why I paid for it.

 

[Jhaelen]

yeah there were almost that many when i got mine.... they appearently ordered ALOT release day, and havn't sold many more than mine

Well, at the online shop from which I ordered it was sold out within the day after they announced they had received a restock at least three times. Then I finally got one, so I don't know if this trend continued. It's still the topseller on their list, though.

 

[danir]

Hi,
apologies if this was published earlier at this thread, but for those wanting a reference point to 3rd edition, according to the following link, WotC sold over 1 million copies of D&D 3rd core books on January 2002, 16 months after its release
ICv2 - Over 1 Million D&D 3E Rulebooks Sold

So it seems that 3rd and 4th have the same OoM in sales.