Animal Crossing (1.8M sold) drives the switch to its highest sales week ever in Japan (392K, higher than launch week)

sir_crocodile · Mar 25, 2020

Update - Animal Crossing has now gone over 3M (physical only) in 3 weeks.
Switch has sold 830K in those 3 weeks.

Media Create Sales: Week 14, 2020 (Mar 30 - Apr 05)

Media Create Sales: Week 14, 2020 (Mar 30 - Apr 05) 01./01. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons # (Nintendo) {2020.03.20} (¥5.980) 02./00. [PS4] Resident Evil 3 # (Capcom) {2020.04.03} (¥7.800) 03./04. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980) 04./03. [NSW] One Piece...

www.resetera.com

Both Animal Crossing & Switches are still hard to find, so there is probably still pent up demand.

----Original OP:

Media Create Sales: Week 12, 2020 (Mar 16 - Mar 22)

Media Create Sales: Week 12, 2020 (Mar 16 - Mar 22) 01./00. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons # (Nintendo) {2020.03.20} (¥5.980) 02./01. [PS4] Nioh 2 (Koei Tecmo) {2020.03.12} (¥7.800) 03./02. [NSW] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX (Pokemon Co.) {2020.03.06} (¥5.980) 04./04...

www.resetera.com

For reference switch did 330K at launch.

Animal Crossing is a draw brother

per hiska:

Media Create Sales: Week 12, 2020 (Mar 16 - Mar 22)

Media Create Sales: Week 12, 2020 (Mar 16 - Mar 22) 01./00. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons # (Nintendo) {2020.03.20} (¥5.980) 02./01. [PS4] Nioh 2 (Koei Tecmo) {2020.03.12} (¥7.800) 03./02. [NSW] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX (Pokemon Co.) {2020.03.06} (¥5.980) 04./04...

www.resetera.com

It sold pretty much the same as the W1's of New Leaf + Happy Home Designer + Wild World + City Folk combined

Chris suggests that with digital this is the best W1 ever in japan:

Chris1964 said:
New Horizons must be around 3m or even more with digital, this is will be a really tough record to break.

LinkStrikesBack · Mar 25, 2020

For comparison, Pokémon sword shield did something like 1.3m OW in Japan.

That's downright ridiculous sales.

Deleted member 30935 · Mar 25, 2020

That is fucking bonkers.

Deleted member 6235 · Mar 25, 2020

holy fuck

what the hell is this shit

Andri · Mar 25, 2020

You aint Mazi, much dissapoint.

Also of note, this is not just the highest opening of a Switch game in japan, with digital around 25%(best guesses put it quite a bit higher) it would also be the biggest opening of a game ever in japan.

And this is a AC game, which are usally more known for their great legs, not great openings.
With typical AC legs this game could get to 20M when all is said and done.

Anth0ny · Mar 25, 2020

LinkStrikesBack said:
For comparison, Pokémon sword shield did something like 1.3m OW in Japan.

That's downright ridiculous sales.

And Switch sold 180k units during Pokemon's first week. And that was in November.

AC more than doubled that figure. Can't understate how insane these numbers are.

Kewlmyc · Mar 25, 2020

Animal Crossing physical sales laugh in Covid-19's face.

night814 · Mar 25, 2020

Crazy but not surprising, AC is huge

TheGreatMightyPoo · Mar 25, 2020

TheAvatar · Mar 25, 2020

Honestly this has a chance of being the second most popular title for the switch behind Mario kart, these sales are just insane

LightKiosk · Mar 25, 2020

I said damn

CaviarMeths · Mar 25, 2020

Burying the lede here.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is likely the biggest launch in Japan of all time if you include digital.

Deleted member 31092 · Mar 25, 2020

PSA, with an extremely realistic, and likey even conservative, digital share of 30% (actually lower than all recent Nintendo titles in Japan) this is the best launch of all time in Japan, beating Pokémon Black and White at 2.6m and Final Fantasy VIII at 2.5m.

According to our own sale expert Chris in the MC thread we are looking at around 3m for the first week.

History in the making.

PedroRVD · Mar 25, 2020

Will something ever top this?

the only two that may be able to achieve this are Splatoon 3 and Final Fantasy 7.

or ... a Mario Kart Ultimate ...

Ravager777 · Mar 25, 2020

Did Nintendo somehow know Animal Crossing for Switch would be such a monster hit? Even for animal crossing standards? If so, kinda explains why there has been no Nintendo direct yet

Rockets · Mar 25, 2020

This is going to be the highest selling switch game period

cw_sasuke · Mar 25, 2020

I know people always joked about game X being delayed because of Animal Crossing.
But honestly for some of the high profile releases that were scheduled to hit around AC its probably best that they were delayed a bit...those are crazy numbers and probably would have negatively impacted other releases.

Also 400k Switches is nuts.

Deleted member 59 · Mar 25, 2020

PedroRVD said:
Will something ever top this?

the only two that may be able to achieve this are Splatoon 3 and Final Fantasy 7.

or ... a Mario Kart Ultimate ...

Final Fantasy VII part 1 will not get close to this number.

benzopil · Mar 25, 2020

Ravager777 said:
Did Nintendo somehow know Animal Crossing for Switch would be such a monster hit? Even for animal crossing standards? If so, kinda explains why there has been no Nintendo direct yet

They shipped at least 1.9 mln copies so I think they knew

Mediking · Mar 25, 2020

Well deserved

Alandring · Mar 25, 2020

Anth0ny said:
And Switch sold 180k units during Pokemon's first week. And that was in November.

Switch had shortages during the last few weeks, so I don't think those hardware numbers are really relevant. But yeah, great number for Animal Crossing.

Deleted member 28386 · Mar 25, 2020

CaviarMeths said:
Burying the lede here.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is likely the biggest launch in Japan of all time if you include digital.

Oh goodness me

SinCityAssassin · Mar 25, 2020

CaviarMeths · Mar 25, 2020

PedroRVD said:
Will something ever top this?

the only two that may be able to achieve this are Splatoon 3 and Final Fantasy 7.

or ... a Mario Kart Ultimate ...

lol

None of those will do even half of this in the first week. FF7R may not do half of this lifetime.

Odeko · Mar 25, 2020

I guess that goes to show that the Switch boost could have carried Sword and Shield to much, much greater heights if the game were actually good like New Horizons :^P

Those are crazy numbers, I'm surprised the stock was there to support that many consoles!

Kaitos · Mar 25, 2020

Just absolutely insane numbers.

SinCityAssassin · Mar 25, 2020

Odeko said:
Those are crazy numbers, I'm surprised the stock was there to support that many consoles!

Common practice is that to prepare for an expected large sales release, Nintendo would withold some weekly stock in order to provide supply for retailers. This can last weeks or months at a time to provide the buffer.

This is no different.

Zen Hero · Mar 25, 2020

Pretty incredible. It's like 1/3 bigger than the next biggest Switch launch, Pokemon. That is a huge gap.

I wonder if we can call Animal Crossing the biggest console video game franchise in Japan at the moment...

WhoaIsThatMars · Mar 25, 2020

Kewlmyc said:
Animal Crossing physical sales laugh in Covid-19's face.

I mean, there's no lockdown here so...

Odeko · Mar 25, 2020

SinCItyAssassin said:
Common practice is stock can be somewhat held back weeks at a time in order to provide supply for a tentpole release.

This is no different.

Yeah that definitely explains the last couple weeks of like 3K OG Switches sold there. I'm sure coronavirus played a part as well but they were definitely stockpiling those things for this storm.

sfortunato · Mar 25, 2020

Animal Crossing has been a huge franchise in Japan since Wild World on DS. Wild World and New Leaf are among the top 10 best-selling games ever in Japan with over 5m units sold. New Leaf launch, further, was hampered by stock issues: it would have no issue in opening above 1m. Worldwide the franchise has been big (5-6m units for both Wild World and New Leaf) but not as in Japan even though it cultivated a pretty strong and dedicated fan following.

I think that many reasons played into this result:

high quality game;
game can played both on TV and on the go;
great strategy in nurturing the fanbase over the years with spin-offs and merchandising;
new mainline entry since New Leaf 7 years ago;
Animal Crossing characters in Smash;
Switch is a popular platform;
mobile game is moderately popular;
Friday was a public holiday.

Dark Ninja · Mar 25, 2020

People been starving for a proper AC since New Leaf and it's on "console" again too. Good to see the spin offs and the other not so great games didn't damage the brand.

aiswyda · Mar 25, 2020

Ravager777 said:
Did Nintendo somehow know Animal Crossing for Switch would be such a monster hit? Even for animal crossing standards? If so, kinda explains why there has been no Nintendo direct yet

I mean, AC has been a monster hit previously--isn't new leaf like the 2nd best selling 3ds game?

but also i know a ton of people trying it out this time who hadn't before, and a lot of those people are newer to gaming and got a switch. so sort of a double whammy of appealing to casual folks and the console itself being accessible to non gamers.

sir_crocodile · Mar 25, 2020

Ravager777 said:
Did Nintendo somehow know Animal Crossing for Switch would be such a monster hit? Even for animal crossing standards? If so, kinda explains why there has been no Nintendo direct yet

It's been explained to me that New Leaf could have done better at launch but was supply constrained.

So I checked New Leaf's MC data and it stayed in the top 5 or thereabouts for SIX MONTHS. Now granted towards the end of that it was because there wasn't that much charting big numbers, but it was doing close to 100K a week for a looooong time. I would have been reading the threads at the time, but somehow I totally forgot...and Switch has sold a few million more than 3DS had at the time, so the userbase is higher too. And of course it's been hyped for the first big change since the 64 game, all of which were well received by games media. It was in the data if you looked.

cw_sasuke · Mar 25, 2020

Alandring said:
Switch had shortages during the last few weeks, so I don't think those hardware numbers are really relevant. But yeah, great number for Animal Crossing.

Regardless of the reasons its still Switch best week ever hw wise - so thats def. relevant. Especially since Switch represents mosts of the market right now.

CaviarMeths · Mar 25, 2020

Dark Ninja said:
People been starving for a proper AC since New Leaf and it's on "console" again too. Good to see the spin offs and the other not so great games didn't damage the brand.

Nobody in Japan has been starving for a console AC game lol.

Noppie · Mar 25, 2020

Expected, and yet so much more higher than expected lol. Insane numbers, bigger than launch what.

Raijinto · Mar 25, 2020

AC breaks all of the records.

Odeko · Mar 25, 2020

Alandring said:
Switch had shortages during the last few weeks, so I don't think those hardware numbers are really relevant. But yeah, great number for Animal Crossing.

I mean it beat the launch week, in which the Switch sold 0 units the week prior

Plus the Switch still sold 57K last week which beats week 11 2019 so it's not like there weren't any units anywhere.

Andri · Mar 25, 2020

PedroRVD said:
Will something ever top this?

the only two that may be able to achieve this are Splatoon 3 and Final Fantasy 7.

or ... a Mario Kart Ultimate ...

FF7R(which i assume is what you meant by FF7) has no chance to top this, unless you combine all launches of the different episodes into one.

Zen Hero said:
Pretty incredible. It's like 1/3 bigger than the next biggest Switch launch, Pokemon. That is a huge gap.

I wonder if we can call Animal Crossing the biggest console video game franchise in Japan at the moment...

Yes, but no.
AC is the biggest one by individual release, but in the span of New Leaf to New Horizons , Pokemon Released XY, ORAS, SM, USUM, Lets Go and SWSH.

g-m1n1 · Mar 25, 2020

DAMN !!!

Impressive (ridiculous even) numbers. Should try an Animal Crossing one day. Was never interested in it, actually don't even really know what it is about.... :-D

Pancakes R Us · Mar 25, 2020

CaviarMeths said:
Burying the lede here.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is likely the biggest launch in Japan of all time if you include digital.

For some reason I thought Famitsu includes digital estimates in their numbers but I guess it doesn't?

Reinhardt Schneider · Mar 25, 2020

Yep, niche game alright

ZeoVGM · Mar 25, 2020

This game is absolutely fucking massive.

Andri · Mar 25, 2020

aiswyda said:
I mean, AC has been a monster hit previously--isn't new leaf like the 2nd best selling 3ds game?

but also i know a ton of people trying it out this time who hadn't before, and a lot of those people are newer to gaming and got a switch. so sort of a double whammy of appealing to casual folks and the console itself being accessible to non gamers.

Depends on if you mean WW or Japan only.

In japan it is the best selling 3DS game, but WW its top 7.

Pancakes R Us said:
For some reason I thought Famitsu includes digital estimates in their numbers but I guess it doesn't?

They do include Digital "estimates", however they are completely made up and should always be ignored.

We have much evidence where their "estimates" directly contradict publicly aviable data, especially concerning Nintendo titles(because their "estimates" are just polling a specific audience that isnt equally interested in every type of game).

SinCityAssassin · Mar 25, 2020

Pancakes R Us said:
For some reason I thought Famitsu includes digital estimates in their numbers but I guess it doesn't?

Every tracker puts out digital estimates later on. The weekly reports are always retail only.

Deleted member 10737 · Mar 25, 2020

things she deserves:
1. IT

including digital, this is probably the biggest game launch ever in japan.

Ryszard · Mar 25, 2020

Holy guacamole...

Totally deserved. Amazing game.

I wonder how it's preforming here in Europe. We'll soon see I guess.

Zedark · Mar 25, 2020

Joseki said:
PSA, with an extremely realistic, and likey even conservative, digital share of 30% (actually lower than all recent Nintendo titles in Japan) this is the best launch of all time in Japan, beating Pokémon Black and White at 2.6m and Final Fantasy VIII at 2.5m.

According to our own sale expert Chris in the MC thread we are looking at around 3m for the first week.

History in the making.

LM3 and SMM2 didn't hit 30% share.

But yeah, 3M is quite possible for a debut. Crazy!

Deleted member 31092 · Mar 25, 2020

Pancakes R Us said:
For some reason I thought Famitsu includes digital estimates in their numbers but I guess it doesn't?

They are trash, worse than not having any data.

They report them later but they are so bad they don't get a place in the OP of the MC thread.

Animal Crossing (1.8M sold) drives the switch to its highest sales week ever in Japan (392K, higher than launch week)

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