Animal Crossing New Horizons Smashes Launch Records in Japan and UK

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, also known as Game of the Year 2020, has sold over 1.88 million physical copies in it’s first weekend in Japan only. This helped them beat out Pokemon Sword and Shield which got 1.36 million in the same amount of time.

In the UK, ACNH’s launch sales were 3.5 times bigger than the last game in the series, New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS. And just for the cherry on top, New Horizons sold more copies in it’s first week than all other Animal Crossing games combined. And for those keeping score at home, we’re on day 5 – not even a full week.

It’s tough to talk about these numbers without the haters mentioning the big Rona. But I genuinely think that these numbers would have still been really close even if we weren’t all locked inside. The playtime might be a little lower, but people would still be buying it. And imagine if you added in digital downloads? Mah lord.

The game is so well done and it’s the thing that is single handily getting me through this quarantine besides frozen pizzas, and looking at the squirrels enjoying the weather through my window. Big ups to Nintendo. You the real MVP.