Animal Crossing: New Horizons has just made the ground breaking record of becoming the best selling game on the Japanese market. Nintendo, the developers of the series have released and updated their sales data information that reveals that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has surpassed their previous best selling game: Pokémon Red and Green.
Red and Green, released on February 27th, 1996 in Japan have held the title for not only the best selling Pokémon game but also the best selling game in Japan period for more than 20 years. Game Freak’s latest entry, Pokémon Sword and Shield have recently taken the crown from it’s predecessor of the best selling Pokémon title to date. New Horizons however has not only passed Sword and Shield in sales but has also taken the crown for the best selling game in the region with 9.19 million copies sold alone.
The earnings from New Horizons is nothing to laugh at either, an estimated $654 million in just global digital sales by the end of 2020. It is currently the ranked 15th on the best selling game globally, and may even move up the ranks by the of this year.
A large part of New Horizon’s success is the timing of it’s release. As everyone knows by this point the current coronavirus pandemic officially started in March of 2020. New Horizons had released that same following month on the 20th, granting everyone who was stuck in quarantine an excellent way to kill time. The main thing with the Animal Crossing series is that it is not meant to be rushed. Within the first few days of playing the game you can only accomplish so much on your island before you are relegated to just waiting around for the next day to come. This day by day cycle of progress kept many players to come back for more and see what else new would happen when they woke up the next day. That is also not to mention that New Horizons has an online feature, so meeting up with your friends on their islands was also a nice treat, and one of the best ways to make quarantine a little less lonely.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
