Animal Crossing: New Horizons Sold More Digital Units In A Single Month Than Any Console Game In History

I went digital for sure. The game suits itself to quickly popping in between sessions of whatever cartridge I have in system.

Ironically I bought it physical.

I would usually go digital for games like this, but I just had it pre-ordered for two years.

Pretty amazing numbers and well deserved.

I'm guessing this is down to the vast majority of stores being closed and people being stuck at home.

Very impressive numbers whatever the reason.

Despite that I'm proud to say I still went down the physical route. (managed to order a copy online and it arrived just before Easter)

No surprise really. Can't wait to here from Nintendo how well we already know it did.

@Brumblescope
Precisely what I was gonna say! ACNH is the first AAA game I ever bought digitally, simply because I knew I would want to dip in and out of it. Plus I bought it on cartridge for the kiddos 😄

I will get ACNH in physical.
#letsgophysical 🤟

That's just sad, spending 60 bucks on a game you dont really own, just a worthless digital copy. But that's what these companies want, they love it when you buy up those digital copies, that way they cant take it away eventually, at least physically you'll always own your game and it can never be taken away ever, I bet lots of the people who bought the digital copies didnt grow up with physical games so these kids dont understand the value of a physical copy

@Brumblescope Exactly. If you're apprehensive, then buy the cartridge, but if you know you're always going to play it, why not?

It was a day one digital for me too.

Cause Nintendo is the best and digital is the best. Duh.

I tend to prefer digital, but this was the last thing I was able to pre-order from Best Buy with their old discount program and 20% off is 20% off. Without new discount programs I'll probably go mostly digital in the future anyway, so me taking New Horizons out of my Switch is unlikely for a good long time.

Well deserved.

QUESTION: I bought a physical copy, but wouldn't mind a digital copy so I don't have to change cartridges all the time. If I did, would I still have my island or would it make me create a new one?

@geni53yr7 Orrrrrrr, there is a global pandemic going on and a lot of people probably couldn't get out to buy a physical copy. Or they were all sold out. Or people prefer the ease of having the game on the console all the time without taking up the cartridge slot.

You may own the game physically forever, but you can just as easily lose a tiny cartridge over time. Or, you won't have access to the magnitude of updates this game has planned, either. Physical games aren't the same as they used to be like in the days you reference.

While New Horizons almost certainly sold a massive amount of digital copies, I would not take these Superdata estimates seriously as absolutely no one outside of Nintendo has access to their 1st party eShop sales figures.

My house contributed to 2 of those downloads. I went all digital when I had my first kid. Just seemed like a good idea. It turns out I was right because my kids are wily.

@geni53yr7 not sure about that. I'm old school so i like cartridges but I I really am enjoying the convenience and ease of game changing with digital. If my Switch breaks, I get another one and link my account to it, and i have my game back. Not sure in 20 years it will matter. I grew up with cartridges but really enjoy the digital convenience....

@geni53yr7

This time around the cartridge is kinda useless long term because they are patching in all future holidays and content via digital download. Once the switch servers go down you'll have a shell of a game.

I was thinking about getting this digital at first, but I went with the physical copy. I couldn’t resist.

Animal Crossing (and maybe Splatoon) are the only AAA games I'll buy digitally. It seemed the like majority of people I know that are into AC got it digitally.

Well deserved! The game's great.

@geni53yr7 I have numerous memory cards that hold my games. I also have physical games as well, but I never got the hate for digital. Yes, I love physical when you get a box full of goodies (like The Witcher 3), but digital is not, say, streaming, where you are at the whims of services that can shut off at any moment.

Digital is only going to grow in time. I download music and movies now, and yes, sometimes still buy physical, but if I like something and digital is how to get it, I will.

This game is on track to overcome MK8D and I'm here for it

I ended up double dipping with a digital and physical copy, only because I was being impatient and didn't want my physical version to be delayed or something, plus I wanted to play at 10pm.

Normally for games, I prefer a physical copy, but for a game like Animal Crossing, I go the digital route.

Back when I played New Leaf daily, it would have been a hassle for me to keep switching out game cartridges, so I bought it digital. So I would do the same for New Horizons.

I no doubt helped with that. Having 3 copies and all... 2 for my wife and my Switch lites and one for my OG Switch. We both wanted our own island and an island in the southern hemisphere. 😂

So that's not even counting april sales, I think it's safe to say that this game has already sold more than 20 million copies worldwide..

Other than completist, the Switch is absolutely the last system I’d ever want physical media for, but to each their own.

What a phenomenon this game has become.

Forget Fire Emblem, now every AC character will come to Smash!

Tom Nook, his kids, Raymond, Able Sisters, a Sea Bass, they're all coming!

Dat dere coronavirus.

I got it digitally for 39 Euros, so it was a no-brainer for me. Also, I agree that it is a game I play in-between games, so having it on the dashboard constantly is really helpful

I went physical as i was unsure if i would like it and whilst i was glued to it week 1 im now getting the feeling that i just cant be bothered with it. Ive got 9 villagers (most of which i dont really care for and id gladly swap out) and i dont think i can be bothered to move all the houses and terraform the island. Im stuck in a bit of a rut with it at the moment.

Wow I knew it was going to sell well, but not quite that well!

Still on the fence myself as I burnt myself out with the series after the first 3 or so games...

I appreciate the music and visuals from Animal Crossing very much, but it isn't my type of game. Glad to see it doing well though, and that people are having a blast being creative within the framework of the island.

So we already know the game sold around 3 million physical copies in Japan on it's first couple of days on sale, add this to the 5 million digital sales, the game must be well on the way to becoming the best selling game for the franchise, if it's not there already, pretty impressive.

Why won’t physical owners have access to future updates? Never heard of that before and I’m updating fine.

Well, Nintendo secretly has to thank Corona for all of this...

@j_whitfield8 Thanks. That was what I was thinking but wasn't sure.

@IronMan30 Gaming with young kids is hard. My daughter is 9 months, and Ive been on a wii kick lately. She loves to try and catch the pretty blue lights lol, especially when Im at a really hard part

@TheLightSpirit As somebody who had consoles going back to the NES up until last year, you are not lying. As I (and my consoles) got older, I realized that they wear out. As a child and teen, I figured they broke due to usage. But, the Dreamcast, PS2 and PS3 (I bought two!) I owned told me otherwise. My Dreamcast would no longer read certain games. My original PS3’s power supply went out (pretty much same thing happened with my Xbox One). My redesigned PS3 stopped reading disc. My PS2 stopped reading disc all together. When I put a disc in, it sounded like sand was on the disc.

After having to move a couple of times in the past five years, I’ve decided to go all digital. I’ve sold my collection of decades worth of games and systems. I still had boxes and boxes of heavy books to move. While in the midst of that, I thought, it’s official, I’m going all digital. I wanna be able to pick up and go with little fuss from this moment on.

I currently have an OG Switch and Lite, Xbox One and my for streaming only PS3. I’ve gone digital with my Switch’s (what a pain that can be!). I sign up for Game Pass when I want to play games on my Xbox. I don’t plan on going back. Physical media has started to feel like burdens to me. I had over 1,000 games and movies. shudders I still plan on buying books!

@TheLightSpirit you say physical media wears out over time but I have an Nes console from 34 years ago that's works flawlessly

New Leaf was the first 3DS game I downloaded because the franchise suits having it as a permenant install so well. Same logic here, plus with isolation as well I'm really not surprised.

@WCB: You will only run into that problem with a few rare games. After playing the physical copy of Runner 3, I decided to grab it digitally on sale for convenience purposes. Turns out, it registers the digital and physical versions as separate games due to having different publishers.

Obviously not a problem in AC but now I have 2 Runner 3 games and the save data is not synced :/

There is realy no end term of stopping this game in sales.
Who would have thought the switch would become so popular.

I think it will break every record in game history, watch the corona outbreak sales figures next month. I would not surprice me, the switch is hitting 75 million sold units worldwide.

It must be something around that amount, since most shops haf prox 5/6 units in stock before everybody went crazy, and then we dont even count big online shops in every country.

@ShadowSniper7 Thanks, healthy information.

Hmm without covid-19 im sure this wouldn't of been the case, I was lucky to get mine physical but its sold out everywhere and even going for £60-£70 on ebay

@PALversusNTSC I checked the other day and saw that the switch has sold just over 53 million consoles

@geni53yr7 A lot of us “older” gamers (I’m not that old - I’m 32 - but I’m certainly not a teenager) that grew up with physical game collections are all-in on digital now because we don’t want mountains of stuff anymore.

I’m all digital on games, mostly digital on comics, and many other things. Most of my friends are the same way. “Ownership” is a vague thing, but at least my 40+ Switch games don’t take up space.

I was able to pre-order when it was announced, then got a digital copy for my husband. Well deserved numbers whatever people's reasons for buying.

These finance reports make me feel like a sports fan with a favorite team (I assume). I'm happy that Animal Crossing is doing so well, but I'm disappointed that it's beating my favorite team: Pokémon. Then again, the ultimate team in this metaphor is Nintendo, and I'm definitely thrilled how successful their Switch and its library has become. =)

I was a stickler for physical copies of everything but I'm slowly switching to digital. My husband wants physical for everything and that's cool, too. We live in a studio apartment so I've just downsized and digitized so much of my life. Also, there are so many good deals on the Eshop that I can't pass up sometimes b/c it's cheaper than physical. To each their own. I was hardcore pro-cash usage b/c it saves the small business owners fee $ and I am way better at saving money when I can have physical cash in hand to see how much I'm spending. I'm switching to digital wallet on my phone when possible and have a new system to help me spend less money w/o cash in hand. Times are changing and I'm trying to adapt to all aspects of digital everyday life from games to everything else. I can just see where the future is going whether i like or not so Im learning to adapt on my terms

I can stomach standing up and switching games, no problem. The time investment of 10 seconds is worth it to me.

My inner alarm bells would ring on the day I get too lazy to change a damn cart/disc/physical media.
Whatever happens, if I get to the level of immovability that most people here entertain, then please take my console and kick me out of here.

@SKTTR I agree, these people are just lazy

I started gaming in 1986 with a Sega Master System (Alex Kidd In Miracle World built-in) so that makes me pretty old.

I have gone all-digital and will never buy physical cartridges or discs again.... They have no place in this day and age.

1. They break easily or wear out after a few years.

2. Day 1 patches make physical media worthless.

3. You still have to buy digital downloaded DL C for most games.

4. If your house burns down, you can't re-download lost physical media onto a new console.

5. Old rare physical media is only worth money if you can find somebody who actually wants to buy it off you. That sealed copy of Cooking Mama Cookstar you are hoarding will never be worth more than $10 to GameStop trade-in. Even if you keep it locked in a safe for 30 years.

6. You never see a U-Haul truck following a hearse and funeral parade