Nintendo have announced the Nintendo Switch has sold 79.87 million units, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons selling 31.18 million units.
The news comes via Nintendo’s recently announced nine month financial results and full-year financial forecast and dividend forecast modifications [1, 2, 3, 4] and the investor relations website [1, 2].
The latest Nintendo Switch sales beats the lifetime sales of the Nintendo 3DS by 3.93 million (75.94 million). The next landmark to beat would be the Game Boy Advance, at 81.51 million units. Nintendo Switch software units sold now total 532.34million units.
Nintendo’s success is hardly surprising, given the explosive sales of the Nintendo Switch. Launched March 3rd, 2017, the Nintendo Switch became the fastest selling console in US history 10 months later.
Over the past year, worldwide sales have ballooned. From 32.27 million (February 2019), to 34.77 million (April 2019), 36.87 million (July 2019), 41.67 million (October 2019), 52.48 million (January 2020), 55.77 million (May 2020), to 68.30 million (November 2020). It also sold over 15 million units in Japan as of September 2020.
The console would go on to break the record for the best selling console in consecutive months; at 22 months. A market researcher of the NPD group also claimed it will be the best-selling console of Holiday 2020, in spite of the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launches.
In recent news, and amid Nintendo having it’s best financial quarter since 2008, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has denied a new Nintendo Switch model will be announced in the near future.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons continues to be the game championed as the reason for Nintendo’s success. The game has achieved a life-time sale of 31.18 million units, with 19.41 million this quarter.
The game sold 1.8 million physical units in its first three days on sale in Japan (making it the best opening week for a Nintendo Switch game), and analysts later claimed the game sold 5 million digital copies over March 2020 (more than any other console game in history).
Later it was revealed the game sold 11.77 million units in its first 11 days on sale, and 13.4 million in its first six weeks. In mid-May it had become the fastest selling Nintendo Switch game in Japan. It later became the best selling game in Japan’s first half of 2020, with over an estimated 5 million physical copies sold.
The game would later sell over 5.6 million units in Asia by August 2020, as well as outselling Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver in Japan. This made it the second best selling game in Japan of all time. The game would later sell over 22 million units worldwide in June 2020, and 26.04 million units in November 2020.
Animal Crossing being upheld as Nintendo’s success is in spite of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe selling 33.41 million units; though as shown above, the game has had a meteoric rise. Other highlights include Super Mario 3D All-Stars selling 8.32 million units.
Image: Reddit
