Animal Crossing: New Horizons Just Hit A Very Unexpected Milestone

It's no secret that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a big success for Nintendo. Not only is New Horizons the latest game in a long-running and much-loved series, but it also landed right around the time that many countries around the world were going into lock down and people were looking for things to help them pass the time. Today, we're learning that the game proved very popular in Japan – so much so that New Horizons wound up selling more boxed copies than every other Switch game that came before it.

That's according to Famitsu, which reported today that Animal Crossing: New Horizon has surpassed 5 million boxed copies sold in Japan. It's the first Switch game to hit that milestone, and though 5 million boxed copies sold might seem like a strange achievement to be celebrating, it's impressive in part because of the increasingly digital nature of game sales.

Not only that, but with the coronavirus outbreak keeping many people indoors and even shutting game stores down in some regions of the world, it's surprising that Animal Crossing: New Horizons managed to sell 5 million physical copies in the span of three months.

We don't have up-to-date details on how much the game has sold across both digital and physical storefronts worldwide, but in its last financial report, Nintendo did indicate that the game was a popular seller. The company said that Animal Crossing had sold 11.77 million copies in its first 11 days on the market, which also happened the be the final 11 days of Nintendo's fiscal year that wrapped up on March 31st, 2020.

We'll have to wait until Nintendo's next financial report to get an official update on Animal Crossing sales numbers, but from this, it seems that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is quickly becoming one of the Switch's all-time best sellers. We'll see what Nintendo reveals in its next round of financials, so stay tuned.