For about 20 years now, Pokemon games have repeatedly enjoyed the status of the fastest selling Nintendo game of all time. Pokemon Sword and Shield is the latest to top the record, exceeding 6 million sales in its first weekend of release making it the fastest selling Nintendo game of all time and the fastest selling game of the generation, so far.
While, unconfirmed, initial sales reports from Japan and the UK suggest Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s sales are staggering.
Sales data from Japan has revealed that Animal Crossing New Horizons is now the fastest selling game of all time in that market, exceeding 2.5 million sales for the weekend. On the other side of the world in the United Kingdom, Animal Crossing topped the charts - although no numbers were revealed other than it outsold the previous game’s franchise record by 3.5 times - which means it’s outsold the rest of the franchise combined by more than double for that time. Considering North America and Europe are traditionally larger markets for Animal Crossing (previous games selling as much as 5 times higher in North America than Japan), it suggests that Pokémon’s record has likely been obliterated. So, at the very least, I’m jumping the gun to suggest the record is at least broken.
Sales estimates for the Switch last week put it at 840,000 units worldwide. or holiday season numbers.
Anyway, the game is a lot of fun. I’ve been a big fan since the GameCube era during my University days. It’s a social simulator/casual game - so you’d expect people logging in, doing their stuff for 3-15 minutes then logging out. But while I was in University, I had a bunch of people crashing at my place all the time, old friends travelling the world, looking for places to stay, random women who I met through school, or at a party, or out on the town. They would put on Animal Crossing and play the shit out of it. And the GameCube version of it was extremely basic compared to later versions; but at the time there wasn’t really anything like it.
Long after I stopped playing, others kept playing it. It was basically the only thing my GameCube got used for except for 007 games, Def Jam Vendetta, and Skies of Arcadia Legends (my Mario Kart and some trash games got stolen, I didn’t miss it as long as I had Mario Kart 64 and SNES). While GameCube is probably the Nintendo console I played the least, it did have its shining gems, and Animal Crossing was the brightest.
Then, when I was a little older and other Animal Crossing games came out, I began connecting with my younger half sisters, and they began connecting with each other over Animal Crossing (my dad... let’s just say he’s sown more than his share of wild oats). So the series means a lot to me. This one is easily the best quality of the bunch; not only does it heavily expand on its traditional features, but it has also added in some sandbox play: you can landscape your island into all sorts of different things.
The game, as always, is not for everyone; there’s no killing or anything like that in it. On the other hand, it’s relaxing and calming, and has grown extremely popular over the generations. Maybe this will be the next Nintendo franchise to breach 20,000,000? It’ll be that one or Breath of the Wild - which is getting very close (around 17 million, 19 million if you include Wii U sales).
While, unconfirmed, initial sales reports from Japan and the UK suggest Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s sales are staggering.
Sales data from Japan has revealed that Animal Crossing New Horizons is now the fastest selling game of all time in that market, exceeding 2.5 million sales for the weekend. On the other side of the world in the United Kingdom, Animal Crossing topped the charts - although no numbers were revealed other than it outsold the previous game’s franchise record by 3.5 times - which means it’s outsold the rest of the franchise combined by more than double for that time. Considering North America and Europe are traditionally larger markets for Animal Crossing (previous games selling as much as 5 times higher in North America than Japan), it suggests that Pokémon’s record has likely been obliterated. So, at the very least, I’m jumping the gun to suggest the record is at least broken.
Sales estimates for the Switch last week put it at 840,000 units worldwide. or holiday season numbers.
Anyway, the game is a lot of fun. I’ve been a big fan since the GameCube era during my University days. It’s a social simulator/casual game - so you’d expect people logging in, doing their stuff for 3-15 minutes then logging out. But while I was in University, I had a bunch of people crashing at my place all the time, old friends travelling the world, looking for places to stay, random women who I met through school, or at a party, or out on the town. They would put on Animal Crossing and play the shit out of it. And the GameCube version of it was extremely basic compared to later versions; but at the time there wasn’t really anything like it.
Long after I stopped playing, others kept playing it. It was basically the only thing my GameCube got used for except for 007 games, Def Jam Vendetta, and Skies of Arcadia Legends (my Mario Kart and some trash games got stolen, I didn’t miss it as long as I had Mario Kart 64 and SNES). While GameCube is probably the Nintendo console I played the least, it did have its shining gems, and Animal Crossing was the brightest.
Then, when I was a little older and other Animal Crossing games came out, I began connecting with my younger half sisters, and they began connecting with each other over Animal Crossing (my dad... let’s just say he’s sown more than his share of wild oats). So the series means a lot to me. This one is easily the best quality of the bunch; not only does it heavily expand on its traditional features, but it has also added in some sandbox play: you can landscape your island into all sorts of different things.
The game, as always, is not for everyone; there’s no killing or anything like that in it. On the other hand, it’s relaxing and calming, and has grown extremely popular over the generations. Maybe this will be the next Nintendo franchise to breach 20,000,000? It’ll be that one or Breath of the Wild - which is getting very close (around 17 million, 19 million if you include Wii U sales).