Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold more copies than the entire Metroid franchise

[Marc]

I'm not even surprised by this. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is insanely popular and I'm not even sure what the last Metroid game has been. I know one is in development for the Nintendo Switch but it's been ages since I've heard about Metroid.

But Animal Crossing: New Horizons has apparently sold more copies than the entire franchise.

More people have bought Animal Crossing: New Horizons in just over 3 months than they have the entire Metroid franchise over 34 years

It's not the only video game to do it tho. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Zelda: Breath of the Wild also did it

How do you all feel about this?

 

[Deepak]

Not surprised at all. Metroid has a chance of rising in the ranks again if metroid 4 comes out this year. It might sell a lot of copies cuz of corona and people have been waiting for that game for years now.

 

[Marc]

It might sell a lot of copies cuz of corona and people have been waiting for that game for years now.

I'm not sure. Covid19 also made people lose their source of income, so they might not be able to buy many games.

Also, I feel like we'd be looking more at a 2021 release.

 

[Gram]

Animal Crossing had a perfect storm of everyone having more free time and being a game with a wide appeal.

Metroid is popular with a particular subset of gamers.
My mom has 1500 hours in New Horizons. She wouldn’t put even 1 into a Metroid game.

 

[Artisan]

Metroid's last games released were Samus Returns and Federation Force on the 3DS kinda late in the 3DS life cycle and Returns was just an updated version of the GB one you could buy dirt cheap on the eShop. I never played too much of the older ones I owned on 3DS but I'd play that over AC any day. It's just there are probably more casual gamers out there than sci-fi adventure/shooter fans from a series with mostly experimental games I'd say. I also don't really like how they remade the NES and GB games since that very well could've hurt sales assuming there's an aftermarket for the older ones.

 

[Sunny_Meows]

I'm not even surprised by this. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is insanely popular and I'm not even sure what the last Metroid game has been. I know one is in development for the Nintendo Switch but it's been ages since I've heard about Metroid.

But Animal Crossing: New Horizons has apparently sold more copies than the entire franchise.

It's not the only video game to do it tho. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Zelda: Breath of the Wild also did it

How do you all feel about this?

Like most of the people on this thread, I am not surprised at all, and for good reason. I definitely think that there are multiple factors leading to Animal Crossing: New Horizons outselling the entire Metroid franchise. Point numero uno: I'm stating the obvious fact that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has skyrocketed into popularity because of its simple nature of being a relaxing, fun, and creative life simulator with great environments and various options for customization. From the name of your island, the villagers in your island (this process make take a considerable amount of time lololololololol) all the way to the color of the toilet in your bathroom simulation, in addition to tons and tons of constant updates providing lots of new stuff to do, and lots of new stuff to interact with. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a perfect fit for the times of today, with general community quarantine happening and such, we all need a break from the stress of every day, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives us almost exactly that. Secondly, (or thirdly, Idk) tons and tons of people all around the world are seen playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons for hours and hours, or simple short and sweet little clips of cute things that are happening to the villagers and/or your island. And such, lots of content creators and streamers have picked up the game, thus increasing its popularity. And lastly, there hasn't really been any new Metroid games. The latest new game was I think Metroid Prime Federation Force, and any form of Metroid isn't available for purchase as of now (except for Metroid and Super Metroid via the NES and SNES applications for Nintendo Switch Online members obviously) and we are still waiting for Metroid Prime 4, so it's kinda Nintendo's fault for that, as well as maybe perhaps just maybe because of Metroid Other M. I know a lot of people still hasn't moved on from that game.