Nintendo Profit Jumps 428 Percent Thanks to Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Nintendo had a terrific lockdown-hit quarter — that's April through June — thanks to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, with operating profit jumping 428 percent year-on-year to nearly JPY 145 billion (roughly Rs. 10,290 crores) off total revenue of JPY 358 billion (roughly Rs. 25,400 crores). The new Animal Crossing title — released last quarter in March — sold over 10 million copies and took its cumulative total to 22.4 million units in less than five months, second only to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (26.74 million) that has taken three years to achieve that number.

It's evident that Animal Crossing: New Horizons directly contributed to Nintendo Switch sales. The Japanese gaming giant noted [PDF] that out of all the new Switch units that were played on for the first time during Q1 of this financial year, more than half played New Horizons on the first day. In doing so, Animal Crossing: New Horizons contributed to a 167 percent year-on-year increase in new members joining the Nintendo Switch family, with 5.68 million Switch consoles — including 2.62 million Switch Lite units, and 3.05 million of the regular Switch — being sold during the quarter.

Thanks to that, Nintendo has now shipped 61.44 million Switch units in total, despite stock shortages created by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Nintendo said it's working hard to deliver more units “as quickly as possible” but admitted that manufacturing could be affected if COVID-19 continues to expand. The shortage hit was much bigger with the Ring Fit Adventure game, an exercising adventure that many stuck-at-home folks opted for.

“Demand for this new proposal from Nintendo of exercising by playing an adventure game was so much higher than our forecasts that the global supply has been unable to keep up since release,” Nintendo said [PDF] in a statement. “We saw a temporary drop in sell-through due to product shortages, especially in March through May, but we have since increased production […] which has helped sell-through to recover. The lingering effects of this product shortage in the market are still an inconvenience to a large number of consumers, but as with the Nintendo Switch family of systems, we will continue to work to ensure a sufficient amount of shipments for the holiday season.”

Still, Nintendo sold a lot more games this quarter, with sales growing 123 percent year-on-year to 50.43 million units. Nine titles — including seven from Nintendo — passed a million units sold. Nintendo didn't talk about any upcoming titles, though given the momentum garnered by Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it looks set to dominate this quarter too.