MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has already surpassed its lifetime sales expectations, despite releasing just under 2 months ago on March 20th. (via VG24/7). This comes from a new Q&A from company president Shuntaro Furukawa.
“The initial sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons have greatly exceeded our expectations,” says the Nintendo head (translation by Nintendo Everything). “We were targeting the current sales numbers for the game’s lifetime considering fans have been waiting such a long time for this game, but it all happened at a much faster rate than we anticipated.”
According to Furukawa, around 50 per cent of purchases in Japan, America, and Europe were digital, perhaps a result of the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on physical production.
Animal Crossing has seen incredible success since its release in March. The game is Nintendo’s biggest Switch launch of all time, selling 11.77m units in just its first ten days.
Nintendo in general as had an exceptional year, with 55.7m Switch units sold to date, with 21.03m of those units sold this year, up by 24 per cent year. This can largely be attributed to the launch of the Switch Lite, adding 6m units to the FY20 total, at a cost of just 2.1m ‘full’ Switch sales dropped year-on-year.
Given the ongoing crisis however, Nintendo expects next year’s hardware sales to be down by 9.6 per cent to 19m units, and software will fall 17 per cent to 140m.
On Covid-19 it noted cautiously: “It appears that delays in production and shipping are gradually recovering. However, we may be affected if there continue to be issues involving the procurement of necessary components. In addition, if the impact of COVID-19 is prolonged or worsens further, it may disrupt the product supply.”
