Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad says that the strength of Nintendo’s software has led to another major milestone being blown past for the Nintendo Switch. The big news is that Animal Crossing: New Horizons had the highest launch day sales for any Animal Crossing game, selling more than 2.5 million copies in its first three days, according to Ahmad.
A huge upsurge in sales, at least 300,000 in Japan alone have given both the base Switch and the Lite variant a nice boost in that market, as well as other areas. Although there are some sour spots of note. The Lite model is much easier to find than the full version, likely due to a combination of consumer demand and the recent shortages stemming from COVID-19 effects on manufacturing. Nintendo has also recently announced a closure of all US-based repair centers as they try to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
This same surge in sales also eclipsed the launch week sales numbers of hardware for the original console, with 392,000 consoles being sold off of the back of the strong software library. For example, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold around 2.5 million copies in its first three days since launch.
With this news also comes the revelation that the Switch has in just 3 years outsold the original Wii in Japan. The Wii shipped 12.75 million units in Japan as of 2016, having sold 101 million consoles worldwide by that time as well. Switch’s worldwide sales of around 52.48 million units were reported by Nintendo in January 2020.
