The March NPD sales results for the US show that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has already outsold every other entry in the series.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is big but until the latest US sales results came in it wasn’t clear just how big. The game has become the third fastest selling Nintendo title of all-time in the US, behind only Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Brawl, and ahead of every Mario and Zelda ever.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll end up with the third biggest lifetime total – games like Mario Kart tend to sell more over time – but it’s a huge success for what was not necessarily considered a top-tier Nintendo franchise until now.
And just to prove how well the game’s done, New Horizons has already outsold every other Animal Crossing game ever made in the US – just as it did in the UK. Although it’s currently only the second best-selling game of 2020, behind Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare.
U.S. all formats chart – March
1 (-) Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS)
2 (1) Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (XO/PS4/PC)
3 (-) MLB The Show 20 (PS4)
4 (-) Resident Evil 3 (XO/PS4/PC)
5 (2) NBA 2K20 (XO/PS4/NS/PC)
6 (-) Doom Eternal (XO/PS4/PC)*
7 (-) Persona 5 Royal (PS4)
8 (3) Grand Theft Auto 5 (360/PS3/XO/PS4/PC)
9 (21) Borderlands 3 (XO/PS4/PC)
10 (5) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (NS)*
*does not include digital sales
Note: U.S. charts are organised by revenue not unit sales
The NPD Group/NPD Funworld
New Horizons’ success is certainly deserved, since it’s a major improvement on the previous titles, but it also came at the perfect time, just as everyone was entering lockdown and looking for something calming and friendly to play.
The second highest new entry of the month was baseball game MLB The Show 20, while the Resident Evil 3 remake came in at number four, ahead of Doom Eternal at number six and Persona 5 Royal at number seven.
After two barren months, March was the first month of the year to see any major new releases and that combined with the lockdown saw software sales rise by 34% on the same time last year.
Hardware sales were up an even bigger 63%, as people bought new consoles to self-isolate with (that or their bots did).
Overall, the games industry in the US saw sales increase by 35% during March, although the first quarter as a whole, including January and February, was down 8% on last year.
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