SuperData, which is a sales tracking and research company part of the Neilsen Corporation, claims that Nintendo has broken even more records than initially thought with Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Their analytics estimate that the latest Animal Crossing game has sold more digital copies in a single month than any other console game in history, surpassing the previous record-holder of Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII, with digital copy sales amounting to about the same launch month total as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokemon Sword and Shield, combined. According to a different sales data tracker, the NPD Group, Animal Crossing: New Horizons became the third-highest selling physical launch of a game in the United States of all time.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold more digital units in a single month (5.0M) than any console game in history. The Nintendo-published title broke the console record for monthly digital game sales previously held by Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII. Animal Crossing: New Horizons also roughly matched the first-month digital sales of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokémon Sword and Shield put together. The game’s combination of social features and a relaxing setting likely appealed to individuals stuck at home. Closures of brick and mortar stores also meant that a higher share of consumers purchased the game digitally compared to past Switch titles.

SuperData also showed that consumers were spending a record amount of money on digital video game purchases in March 2020 with gamers worldwide spending $10 billion dollars on the industry, up 11% from 2019, while data localized to the United States proved that the country alone spent $1.6 billion on games this March, with software and hardware sales up by 35% over last year.

Spending on digital games reached $10.0B in March, the highest monthly total ever. Individuals are turning to games as a reliable entertainment option during the COVID-19 crisis and are using online multiplayer to keep in touch with others. Total digital revenue was up 11% year-over-year from March 2019 ($9.0B).

Source

 

[Deleted member 512337]

To be fair, yes.

Just because its different than other FGs doesnt mean its easy/makes them casuals

i dont get it, it looks so boring, the switch must have a lot of casuals who are used to these simple games on mobile

The switch gets more than stupid mobile games with no substance(There isn't many mobile game ports to begin with.).

 

[Goku1992A]

I can't hate on a game that I don't know... from my research it's a simulator game. I strongly believe simulator games are games of the future because it mimics real life.

I tried playing drug dealer simulator on my PC but I got bored of it due to the lack of guns and lack of violence..

 

[osaka35]

Just because a game is laid-back or accessible doesn't make it casual. If your definition of a non-casual game is "does it require mad skills to complete", then you're going to miss out on so much fun.

But that aside, it's been a fun game. Glad to see everyone playing it. Hopefully means we've got a lot of good free DLC coming our way.

 

[lordelan]

I can't believe this. AC sold better than Smash and Pokémon? And FIFA? And CoD?

 

[GBADWB]

Also, is it a bad thing that I've never heard of "Dungeon Fighter Online"...?

Depends on how closed your bubble is. Its In the top 50 grossing IP's of all time. Number 7 in top selling video game franchises and has a manga as well as anime adaption.

It's a old MMO that plays like a classic side scroller beat-em up but with mmo mechanics

 

[Oracleofire]

I can't believe this. AC sold better than Smash and Pokémon? And FIFA? And CoD?

Fun fact: it not just sold better than Smash and Pokémon, but it roughly matched their first-month sales combined as well.

 

[drewret]

this is absolutely nuts

 

[Funyarinpa]

I don't think AC is really my kind of game after playing Wild World recently, but this both makes sense and is incredibly impressive anyway.

 

[Viri]

Also, is it a bad thing that I've never heard of "Dungeon Fighter Online"...?

I have, and played it quite a bit. Nexon used to own it, and ran it into the ground, killed the player count. If you've heard of Nexon, then you'll know why. It's pretty much a side scrolling game em up game on PC. But it's littered with micro transactions out the ass, for everything. Nexon is infamous for microtransactioning the ass out of games. They're the EA of South Korea.

 

[Deleted member 412537]

Neato. However, I have a feeling that some gamers may actually stop playing NH once self quarantine ends.
Its not like this behavior doesn't ever occur anyway.

 

[raxadian]

Bet the people who thought Nintendo/the Switch were dying are feeling pretty goood right now

To be fair the Wii U sales were quite terrible compared to Switch sales.

The Switch is the most powerful portable videoconsole in the market.

Unfortunately is gonna be quite weak hardware wise compared to the PS5 and the newest Xbox thingie.

But the Wii worked quite well despite the weak hardware so I don't see why Nintendo can't do well with the Switch.

 

[HarveyHouston]

AWESOMMMME!!!

 

[Foxi4]

To be fair the Wii U sales were quite terrible compared to Switch sales.

The Switch is the most powerful portable videoconsole in the market.

Unfortunately is gonna be quite weak hardware wise compared to the PS5 and the newest Xbox thingie.

But the Wii worked quite well despite the weak hardware so I don't see why Nintendo can't do well with the Switch.

To be fair, it's already pretty weak compared to the PS4 and the Xbox One, so this is a pre-existing gap that's only growing wider. Obviously you can downscale multiplatform games, but Switch gamers should make peace with sub-HD resolutions and sub-30 FPS performance because it's only going to escalate from here. Thankfully the Switch has first-platform games going for it, and unlike it was the case with the Wii U, it's actually portable, so it exists in a niche market all by itself.

 

[JavaScribe]

I agree with the conclusions they drew, COVID-19 was definitely the driving force behind these results. With many stores across the world either closed or out of stock due to shipping issues and with customers stuck at home the digital storefront was often the only option.

And Animal Crossing is a game that lets you socialize/interact with friends online without meeting in person. Guess what people are being told to do right now?

 

[64bitmodels]

To be fair the Wii U sales were quite terrible compared to Switch sales.

The Switch is the most powerful portable videoconsole in the market.

Unfortunately is gonna be quite weak hardware wise compared to the PS5 and the newest Xbox thingie.

But the Wii worked quite well despite the weak hardware so I don't see why Nintendo can't do well with the Switch.

I mean there was always this pattern with handhelds. Handhelds come out with graphics 1-2 generations behind, then the console equivalent comes out later on and smashes it in terms of hardware and graphics
and it's not like this is a new thing with handhelds either-
gameboy came out in 1989, had a b&w screen and was a tad bit below NES hardware
then SNES comes out in 1991 and smashes gameboy in terms of hardware. Hell, the Genesis came out in 1989 and still smashed gameboy despite weaker hardware than snes
DS comes out in 2004 with 3d polygonal graphics- first for a handheld- with the wii and 360 coming out 1 year later with graphics that still hold up even today.
3ds came out in 2011, has Gamecube-level graphics and stereoscopic 3d
then Wii U comes out in 2012 and has HD alongside 360 graphics
Switch is no different from the others. It came out in 2017 with HD in both portable and TV mode-
Xbox Series X and PS5 come out in late 2020 and stomp it in terms of power and hardware.

 

[ploggle]

very well deserved :^)

 

[raxadian]

I mean there was always this pattern with handhelds. Handhelds come out with graphics 1-2 generations behind, then the console equivalent comes out later on and smashes it in terms of hardware and graphics
and it's not like this is a new thing with handhelds either-
gameboy came out in 1989, had a b&w screen and was a tad bit below NES hardware
then SNES comes out in 1991 and smashes gameboy in terms of hardware. Hell, the Genesis came out in 1989 and still smashed gameboy despite weaker hardware than snes
DS comes out in 2004 with 3d polygonal graphics- first for a handheld- with the wii and 360 coming out 1 year later with graphics that still hold up even today.
3ds came out in 2011, has Gamecube-level graphics and stereoscopic 3d
then Wii U comes out in 2012 and has HD alongside 360 graphics
Switch is no different from the others. It came out in 2017 with HD in both portable and TV mode-
Xbox Series X and PS5 come out in late 2020 and stomp it in terms of power and hardware.

The Gameboy had the advantage that Nes games were quite easy to port to the Gameboy, trying to up Gameboy sales with ports was one of the reasons the Nes was keep alive for years after the Super Nintendo release.

The Gameboy Color was basically a portable Nes so while slightly more complicated, it was still easy to program for.

The GBA was supposed to be a portable Super Nintendo, but not only it had color problems but lacked enough buttons to be a portable Super Nintendo, making any port of the Super Nintendo made to it quite bad. Only games created specifically for the GBA looked good and took advantage of the hardware.

The DS was quite close to being a portable Nintendo 64 (without the expansion pack) but Nintendo insistence that every game had to work mainly using the touchscreen, at least early on, hurt it when it came to 3D plataformers. Despite that it still did quite well.

The 3DS had and has several problems, unlike the DS it has regional locking, the microphone works worse that the DS version, and during it's first years it lacked mainline Nintendo games.

Heck early one the top selling games was a
Nintendogs game!

It still did quite well, at least way better that the Wii U, more so in Japan were it basically killed any other portable.

 

[Foxi4]

The Gameboy had the advantage that Nes games were quite easy to port to the Gameboy, trying to up Gameboy sales with ports was one of the reasons the Nes was keep alive for years after the Super Nintendo release.

The Gameboy Color was basically a portable Nes so while slightly more complicated, it was still easy to program for.

The GBA was supposed to be a portable Super Nintendo, but not only it had color problems but lacked enough buttons to be a portable Super Nintendo, making any port of the Super Nintendo made to it quite bad. Only games created specifically for the GBA looked good and took advantage of the hardware.

The DS was quite close to being a portable Nintendo 64 (without the expansion pack) but Nintendo insistence that every game had to work mainly using the touchscreen, at least early on, hurt it when it came to 3D plataformers. Despite that it still did quite well.

The 3DS had and has several problems, unlike the DS it has regional locking, the microphone works worse that the DS version, and during it's first years it lacked mainline Nintendo games.

Heck early one the top selling games was a
Nintendogs game!

It still did quite well, at least way better that the Wii U, more so in Japan were it basically killed any other portable.

It's hard to say if games were "easy" or "difficult" to port - I would err on the side of "difficult". None of Nintendo's portables shared their hardware designs with their home console "equivalents":

• GB=Intel 8080/Zilog Z80 hybrid and NES=MOS 6502 derivative
• SNES=more modern MOS 6502 derivative and GBA=ARM7+GBC CPU for BC/Sound
• N64=MIPS R4300i derivative and DS=ARM9+ARM7

This was a very different approach compared to SEGA that straight-up re-released their home consoles as portables - the Game Gear is an enhanced Master System and the Nomad is a portable Mega Drive/Genesis.

 

[raxadian]

It's hard to say if games were "easy" or "difficult" to port - I would err on the side of "difficult". None of Nintendo's portables shared their hardware designs with their home console "equivalents":

One of the official reasons Nintendo had to keep the Nes going on was actually that Nes games usually got Gameboy ports and portable consoles were becoming popular in Japan. They still would have let the Gameboy die if it wasn't for Pokemon reviving the system, as the Wonderswan was way more popular.

With the GBC a lot of early games to it were just Gameboy games with color added and is easy to notice how they are lower quality compared to games made for GBC that take advantage of the more powerful hardware graphics and sound. Still the GBC could run Gameboy games even if the coloring made them look horrible, there was a button combination to turn them black and white, buy it didn't work with all Gameboy games.

The GBA really suffered for not having two buttons more, and it was very difficult to port games to it, the few that actually worked were complete remakes.

With time, it also became evident that the size limit of cardriges was also a huge limitation. Some late GBA games that to cut down content to fit. Heck one of the reasons Mother 3 is so linear is that is just a few megabytes near the size limit. Granted this was a very late release for the system, but still counts.

At the time cardriges definitely started to become expensive, it was cheaper to release a game on a CD that it was for the GBA but as games were moving to DVDs plus Pokemon popularity keep the system going.

 

[subcon959]

I tried it when it came out (on Switch) and couldn't really be bothered.. then a week later I came across a build of Ryujinx that was able to run it pretty well (on my PC anyway) and for some reason I got hooked. Now I've put more hours into it than I feel comfortable admitting