#Animal Crossing: New Horizons Becomes the No. 1 Best-Selling Game in Japan Ever, Overtakes Pokémon Red and Green
“#Animal Crossing: New Horizons Becomes the No. 1 Best-Selling Game in Japan Ever, Overtakes Pokémon Red and Green”
Japanese game company Nintendo released its third-quarter report for the year ending March 30, 2021, or the end of the Japanese fiscal year for businesses today, which showed the company is revising its profit forecast up from 1.4 trillion yen (US$13.34 billion), which Nintendo has already surpassed this year, to 1.6 trillion yen (US$15.25 billion) on the back of incredibly strong sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo updated its sales data (up to December 30, 2020) for Animal Crossing, showing that worldwide, the game has sold 31.18 million copies since it was released on March 20, 2020, or just a little over 9 months ago. This makes it the 15th highest-selling game of all-time worldwide. 9.19 million copies of those were sold in Japan alone, making it the best-selling game in the region and overtaking the original Pokémon Red and Green video games (the upgraded version of Pokémon Blue is counted separately on most sales charts in Japan).
Both Animal Crossing and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have passed the 30 million copies sold mark on the Nintendo Switch, making both some of the highest-selling games of all time.
Nintendo also updated some of their own huge franchises, revealing that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Pokémon Sword and Shield, and Super Mario Odyssey have all surpassed 20 million copies sold worldwide, making them some of the highest-selling games in their franchises. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is now the best-selling Zelda game ever with 21.45 million copies sold on the Nintendo Switch alone, and Pokémon Sword and Shield continue to be the highest-selling mainline Pokémon games since Pokémon Gold and Silver with 20.35 million copies sold on the Switch.
On the hardware side of things, the Nintendo Switch has overtaken the Nintendo 3DS in hardware sales, at 79.87 million consoles sold compared to the 3DS's 75.94 million consoles sold. The Switch continues to be the second highest-selling home console for Nintendo after the Wii, and the second to last highest selling portable console, in front of the aforementioned 3DS. Though, the Switch leads the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance in software sales.
While the full report on how well Nintendo did over the last year won’t be released until after March 30, it’s clear that the game maker has had one of its best years on record, and with stocks of the Nintendo Switch still dry around the world, 2021 will continue the dominance of the Kyoto-based company.
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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.
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