As part of Nintendo's earnings report, the company shared new sales statistics for its most popular video games, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons is truly a phenomenon.
The game has now reached 31.18 million copies sold, which is a remarkable achievement for a variety of reasons, but perhaps most notably is that it reached that mark in well under a year. According to independent analyst Benji-Sales, New Horizons becomes the first console exclusive game in history to reach 30 million copies sold in a calendar year.
Even more impressive is that it reached the sales milestone in only 9 months, following its release in March 2020, so the figure is sure to grow even higher for its first 12 months.
Animal Crossing New Horizons is the first console exclusive title of all time to sell over 30 million units in a calendar year
— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) February 1, 2021
It has reached 31.18 million sold as of December 31st 2020
What an unbelievable juggernaut pic.twitter.com/uMUqWn8I0Y
Many remarked that New Horizons came out just at the right time, as its March 2020 release date was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when people were, more than ever, looking for fun and wholesome games to play. With sales of 31 million units, that means about 39% of Switch owners (80 million) now have a copy of New Horizons, which boggles the mind.
In total, Nintendo has now sold more than 532 million games over its lifetime. New Horizons is rapidly closing in on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which is the best-selling Switch game of all time with 33.41 million copies sold. You can see the full list of top-selling Switch games below.
The figures, provided by Nintendo, represents lifetime sales to date and include copies sold within bundles and digitally.
Top-Selling Switch Games:
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe -- 33.41 million
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons -- 31.18 million
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate -- 22.85 million
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -- 21.45 million
- Pokemon Sword/Shield -- 20.35 million
- Super Mario Odyssey -- 20.23 million
- Super Mario Party -- 13.82 million
- Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!/Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee! -- 13.00 million
- Splatoon 2 -- 11.90 million
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe -- 9.82 million
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