Animal Crossing: New Horizons breaks record for digital console game sales

According to analyst firm SuperData, five million digital copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons were sold in a month. Never before has a console game sold so much digitally in that time frame.

The record for the most digital sales in a month so far was with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, SuperData writes. That has now been broken by Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a game only available for the Nintendo Switch. The analyst firm says that five million digital copies of the game have been sold in a month, the same as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokémon Sword and Shield simultaneously, in the first month that those games came out.

It is not yet known how many copies of the new Animal Crossing game have been delivered in total. With its analysis, SuperData only focuses on digital sales, physical copies are not included. Nintendo will announce its quarterly figures at the beginning of May and will probably come up with official sales figures.

The high number of digital sales is probably due in part to store closures due to measures taken during the corona crisis. As a result, more people would have bought the digital version, rather than a physical copy. According to SuperData, the corona crisis has a lot of influence on gamers’ spending. In March, gamers worldwide are said to have spent $10 billion on digital games and in-game purchases. That is 11 percent more than a year ago and a record.

Doom Eternal sold three million digital copies in March, according to SuperData. That’s three times more copies of Doom 2016 in the first month after that game came out. VR game Half-Life: Alyx was played by 860,000 gamers in March, according to analysts. Direct sales are said to have brought in $40.7 million. The game is also bundled for free with the Valve Index headset.

Income from digital sales, in-game purchases and microtransactions