Home Gaming Step aside Pokémon, as Animal Crossing New Horizons sets record for best first week sales for a Switch game in Japan

Step aside Pokémon, as Animal Crossing New Horizons sets record for best first week sales for a Switch game in Japan

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I’ll be the first to admit that I take pride in the news I get to write today. As the biggest Animal Crossing fan at Critical Hit, it feels good to prove to Darryn that AC is even more popular than Pokemon (Editor’s note: I’m shaking my fist so hard right now). Don’t get me wrong, I adore Pokémon with all my heart, but Animal Crossing is just…bliss. It gets frowned upon a good deal by those who just “don’t get it” and that’s okay, it’s certainly not an experience made for everyone. Yet it’s clearly something made for a lot of people as Famitsu has just confirmed the sales numbers for Animal Crossing: New Horizons in Japan and the statistics are astounding.

According to Famitsu, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the latest entry into the series that released last Friday, has shipped over 1.8 million copies just under a week after its initial release, making it the Switch game with the most successful first week launch. That topples Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which clocks in at roughly 1.2 million and, most impressively, beats out Pokemon Sword and Shield which moved around 1.3 million copies in its first week. It’s not like Animal Crossing just beat them either, it thrashed both of them with hundreds of thousands of extra copies being sold. Not that it’s a competition, but you know. Just saying.

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Famitsu also reports that in the week following New Horizon’s launch, Nintendo moved 392 576 Switch systems, meaning that Animal Crossing is apparently a system seller. Bear in mind that these numbers are just in Japan, not taking into the account the rest of the world. Throw in those numbers and…well, I can’t count that high. Nintendo and Tom Nook are probably laughing all the way to the bank now, deservedly so. Take a read of our New Horizons review here. Spoiler alert: We loved it a lot.

Last Updated: March 26, 2020

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