Animal Crossing: New Horizons has clearly been a big hit, but now we are starting to learn how big of a hit it's been, with early sales numbers from Japan revealing some records being broken. Animal Crossing has sold 1.88 million copies in just its first three days since release, which marks a new record for launch sales on Nintendo Switch.
According to GI.biz, The previous record of 1.36 million copies, was held by last fall's Pokemon Sword and Shield, which combined for that total. New Horizons is the first mainline entry in the popular life sim since New Leaf on 3DS, so this latest sequel comes as not just the first on a home console in many years, but it's also the first to do so in the social media-connected world we now live in, so it's naturally become a lightning rod for tweets, forum fare, and memes.
As always with Nintendo, these figures do not include digital sales either, which according to some estimates may account for nearly half of all sales which, if accurate here, truly leaves Animal Crossing: New Horizons as the year's biggest success so far.
The launch of Animal Crossing has also pushed hardware sales higher than ever before in Japan. Switch and Switch Lite sales combined to sell almost 393,000 units in the last week, which is an increase of 585% over the week prior and gives the console its best sales period ever, including the 2017 launch.
Critics love it too, evidenced by New Horizons currently sitting atop the 2020 OpenCritic Hall of Fame with a 92 average from 57 reviewers. 100% of those who reviewed the game recommended it for play.
