Animal Crossing: New Horizons Sold 11.77 Million Copies In Just 12 Days

🤯mind blowing

By comparison, Pokemon Sword/Shield sold 12.3 million copies in its first 9 weeks in JP/US/EUR, and that was fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time as of Dec 2019.

So it looks like Animal Crossing New Horizon's is now Nintendo's new fastest-selling game ever.

ofc now it's more. But we need to understand that New Horizons was released when the Switch already had a large userbase. Wild World and New Leaf were released at the beginning of the DS and 3DS life.

Gaming is a modern addiction, and unfortunately games like Pokemon and Animal Crossing both play into it pretty severely. That said, respect to them for both being free to play and lacking in microtransaction nonsense.

Beast Crossing!

@TobiasAmaranth I don’t believe either Pokemon Sw/Sh nor Animal Crossing fall under the commonly accepted definition of ‘free to play’, as the player is required to pay an up-front cost in order to purchase them.

That said, I’m very glad that Animal Crossing doesn’t feature any in-game micro-transactions, as I think they’d take the shine off the game’s innocence and charm. It’s bad enough being fleeced by Nook for virtual money.

Nintendo themselves probably didn’t see this coming.

Let’s face it- Animal Crossing was a C-tier franchise to Nintendo, right next to Pikmin. Solid gameplay for a niche crowd and it’d probably sell decent.

No one in their right mind would’ve guessed it’d outsell heavyweights like Splatoon 2 and Luigi’s Mansion, and be in the same league as almighty Mario and Zelda. Animal Crossing isn’t even featured in Mario Kart! This is just madness.

EDIT: I need to start choosing more racers in Mario Kart...

@massi914
It's very rare for a sequel to outsell its immediate predecessor in under 6 weeks.

Exceptions usually happen when the predecessor was hampered by a low install base, which is not an issue here as neither the NDS nor 3DS had a low install base.

@ItsOKToBeOK “ Animal Crossing isn’t even featured in Mario Kart!”

Animal Crossing has its own course in Mario Kart as well as two racers in the form of Isabelle and Villager!

This is absolutely insane. Congrats Nintendo. I know this is partially to "blame" on the corona pandemic, but the game is truly wonderful and I believe it deserves to be this popular.

So what's the number at now? This is pretty nuts!

that is crazy! animal crossing absolutely viral, I couldn't stop seeing all over instagram, twitter etc, but still surprising just how many actually sold

@ItsOKToBeOK no one in their right mind would think the way you think when the two previous entries sold 12.5 and 11.75 million respectively. C-tier, lol

@ItsOKToBeOK

Yeah bud, Animal Crossing hasn't been C tier since New Leaf, and even before that it was at LEAST B tier. IMHO it's always been one of their top franchises.

All those sales with only one island and only 30fps. Gamer problems don't seem to reflect the main buying public it seems.

I'm the only person I know with a switch who doesn't have AC.

@ItsOKToBeOK

Wow this is so incredibly inaccurate lol. Animal Crossing has been a way bigger deal than both Luigi’s mansion and Splatoon, it’s not even close. All great games, so not knocking those franchises, but it sounds like you only accounted for Nintendo since 2018 and not the last two decades lol.

Anyways like I said before, we’re looking at 30 million copies sold by the end of the year. More power to them!

This is including digital right?

I should really look at graphs. 13 million is incredible in 6 weeks. Other console manufacturers would love to have those numbers.

@gortsi no one would’ve thought Animal Crossing had a shot at being the #1 selling game on the Switch was my point...

New Leaf took 7 YEARS to get those numbers, with multiple discounts, AND is still on shelves today. NH took 12 days to top it, full price, and is gunning for Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey for the crown. That’s insane

It will easily take Odyssey and Breathe of the wild. The game has such a presence outside of the gaming community. I think it has a fair chance of being the Switch's best selling game as it has accessibility and a timely release date that play extremely into its favour.

@ItsOKToBeOK I doubt it'll take the crown off of Mario Kart 8 deluxe, but who knows at this point .

@ItsOKToBeOK The previous two entries sold over 10 million. If that’s C-tier, what would S-tier be? Personally I’d say any game over 10 million is S-tier and C-tier would be around a million. What I dont think Nintendo foresaw was the speed it would sell.

Animal Crossing is not my cup of tea, but on the release of the game i bought 2 other games instead. Astral Chain and Super Mario Maker 2.

That is insane. Seriously

Wow they're really making banks!!!

Impressive results for sure.

@Maxz Thanks for that "villager" picture. It goes a ways to explaining why no mater how hard I try my villager in ACNH looks absolutely nothing like me, b/c it still looks like him. I guess Nintneod gave us the option of dressing up their "villager" as we see fit rather than making our own avatar. I still wish they would have let us use our Mii in the game, I've been rocking mine for 15 years now.

So that's not even counting the sales in april

Does anyone want to argue that Animal Crossing isn’t a major Nintendo franchise now? No? I thought not.

Insane numbers. Almost 1 in 5 Switch owners have this game.

The sad thing is I'm neglecting my two AC New Leaf towns.

@ItsOKToBeOK in this respect, you are correct. But in saying that it was a C-tier series, not really. Especially comparing it to something like Pikmin, which has been MIA for years

@RPGamer Yep they even say in the initial description that you have the opportunity to be transported to an island, not isles, an island. But yeah things in here get amplified to ridiculous levels sometimes even when it's just a storm in a teacup.

What can we expect nintendo to do differently for ac now thats its one of their big brands now?

13,410,000 copies x $60/game = $804,600,000. Amazing. This could be a billion-dollar game.

@Synecdoche Take into account games are much pricier in Japan (around $70 to $80) and it's already a billion seller

@Kr96
Like most Nintendo games, New Horizons is ¥5,900 in Japan, which hardly translates to $70 USD.

@westman98
I attribute New Horizon's Earth-shattering success to several things.
1. About 7 years (give or take a few months depending on the region) since New Leaf was released. While New Leaf was a smash hit, plenty of people who played the earlier games likely never touched it. Also, those who did were very hyped to finally play another game. The hype factor from Nintendo is also part of this big point I'm making. The way they trickled out information for the game was brilliant, even if it was frustrating to wait so long for details.
2. There are more Switches sold right now than there were previous Nintendo platforms (minus the Wii) at this time in its life. And then there are millions of people who were finally going to get Animal Crossing for the Switch. More people I think than even Smash or Mario.
3. COVID-19. America is Nintendo's biggest market, and has been hit heavily by the pandemic. More people staying home (whether unemployed or not) and wanting something positive to enjoy is where Animal Crossing can shine.
4. Nostalgia for the older titles. There are probably some people who played the original AC and Wild World that didn't keep up after that. Now with a new AC on a hybrid platform, they can jump back in.

@Ladasta usa.

i impressed that Animal Crossing New Horizons managed to sold so well in only one month and managed to outsold all previous mainline Animal Crossing games in only one month, i was expecting good sales for the game but not in this level, at the end of 2020, Animal Crossing New Horizons will be Switch best selling game for this year.

@WiltonRoots the Only Island Problem i can understand but Animal Crossing New Horizons don't need to have a framerate of 60fps or above to be a better game.

@Giancarlothomaz Yeah it's crazy, it's hardly some hair trigger reflexes type fighter or fps, it's a sedate and slow paced relaxed affair, yet I've seen people cry over the framerate in here.

Animal Crossing Wild World and New Leaf both rank among the Top 10 best-selling games of all time in Japan with 5.8-5.9 million copies sold each, so New Horizons being a sales juggernaut in Japan shouldn't be of any surprise.

The shock is how massively the franchise grew in the west. New Leaf sold ~700,000 copies during its launch week and ~6 million copies lifetime in the west. New Horizons' western launch sales look to be in the ~4 million range. The growth was massive.