Animal Crossing: New Horizons continues to be an unstoppable juggernaut. We already reported that the game had become the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch title in history for the region of Japan, and now it’s achieved an even greater plateau of success. As reported by the Japanese website Famitsu, and later by Resetera, Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold more than 284,000 physical units in the past week. This increased the total lifetime sales to a monstrous 3.89 million, which means that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now the best-selling game on the Switch in the region of Japan, usurping the previous king of this title, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in the process.
It’s important to note that Nintendo does not regularly report on digital sales, which in turn makes this feat all the more impressive. To be able to get that many physical copies out the door in such a short time frame is absolutely insane. To put this into perspective, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate took the crown of the best-selling game in Japan over four months after it released. Today it currently sits at more than 3.66 million units sold after being out for well over a year. Animal Crossing: New Horizons completely trounced those numbers in just a little more than one month after it launched on March 20. It didn’t even need a full year of availability to get to that level of success.
Not surprisingly, the game was also number one on the sales charts in Japan for last week, sitting comfortably ahead of some well known AAA titles which include the just-released Trials of Mana, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Ring Fit Adventure. In addition, the Nintendo Switch itself saw a major boost in sales thanks to some restocking on store shelves since the overall inventory was impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The system sold more than 66,000 units that week, which bolstered its lifetime sales in Japan to approximately 12,000,000.
Despite these crazy numbers that the game is accumulating, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is on track to possibly become the best-selling game of 2020. Of course, there are other titles that will contest this, especially in the holiday season with the upcoming PlayStation 5, which will be limited when it launches, and Xbox Series X which is due for worldwide first look at gameplay on May 7. Where the gaming industry will be in the latter half of 2020 remains a mystery, but for now, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the undisputed king.