As I recently wrote, I consider 5th edition to be both too complex and too expensive to make a good product that gets new players into pen & paper role-playing. And apparently I wasn't the only one who thought that: Mike Mearls from Wizards of the Coast announced Basic Dungeons & Dragons, a FREE online pdf with just 4 classes and 4 races, but covering level 1 to 20. So everybody who wants to start playing can use those free rules system for his first campaign, and then decide whether he wants to expand on that with the information from the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. I will definitively check that out, and maybe even buy the $20 D&D Starter Set to (solo) test how easy it would be to play just using Basic D&D and the starter set.

I hope this works out for Dungeons & Dragons, and they get a lot of new players. Because frankly up to now I didn't see who would actually buy 5th edition. Because 4th edition is such a different game, and 5th edition is conceptually a step backwards, introducing old flaws back into the system, it is safe to say that most fans of 4th edition aren't going to rush to buy 5th. And the people who always hated 4E have long since found a good home in Pathfinder, and it isn't obvious what the advantage of switching to 5E would be. So new players are actually the best bet for 5th edition.