It would appear that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has officially become one of the fastest-selling Nintendo titles in history in the United States, according to a new report from The NPD Group. NPD tracks sales for video games like these, but lacks digital information for Nintendo-published titles, so that’s not even accounting for whatever the latest and greatest Animal Crossing iteration sold digitally. According to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons achieved the 3rd highest launch month physical dollar and unit sales of any Nintendo published game in tracked history.”
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For anyone following along at home, that puts the 2020 video game below just two previous Nintendo games in the United States: 2018’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and 2008’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now, again, this is for physical sales only in the United States, but it’s still a mightily impressive metric. Additionally, and likely in part fueled by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as well as Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ release, the Nintendo Switch doubled its hardware sales in March 2020 when compared to last year.
US NPD SW – Animal Crossing: New Horizons achieved the 3rd highest launch month physical dollar and unit sales of any Nintendo published game in tracked history. Only Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Dec 2018) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Mar 2008) sold more in the launch month.
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) April 21, 2020
“It is impossible to separate the market impact coming as a result of social distancing versus that of the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” Piscatella states in a new blog post. “Would video game sales have performed as strongly in the month of March without Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Would Animal Crossing: New Horizons have performed as strongly were it released in any other month in history other than March 2020, when social distancing was fairly consistent across the country? I believe the answer to both questions is likely no.”
Have you already given Animal Crossing: New Horizons a shot? Are you excited for this week’s free update? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently available for Nintendo Switch. The free update is set to release this Thursday, April 23rd. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Animal Crossing: New Horizons right here.
