Animal Crossing: New Leaf is continuing to print money as it sold yet another 237,823 retail copies last week (November 19th to 25th) in Japan according to Famitsu’s numbers. This marks the third week in a row where the game has topped the sales charts at #1.
Adding to our total from the last sales post, we can assume the game has sold at least1,474,926 copies plus the unaccounted for digital download purchases since November 12th. Nintendo may release more sales information for that in the future but for now we’re clueless besides the 200,000 number released on November 12th.
Finally, some may find it interesting to know that Animal Crossing: New Leaf actually outsold Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (it only launched on the 22nd in Japan) last week.
01./01. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf # <ETC> (Nintendo) {2012.11.08} (¥4.800) – 237.823 / 1.274.926 (-25%)
02./00. [PS3] Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Subtitled Edition <ACT> (Square Enix) {2012.11.22} (¥7.980) – 223.344 / NEW
03./00. [3DS] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Magnagate and the Infinite Dungeon <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2012.11.23} (¥4.800) – 125.911 / NEW
04./00. [PS3] Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational # <SPT> (Sony Computer Entertainment) {2012.11.22} (¥4.980) – 86.912 / NEW
05./03. [3DS] New Super Mario Bros. 2 # <ACT> (Nintendo) {2012.07.28} (¥4.800) – 27.125 / 1.411.969 (-28%)
The next DLC item set to be sent out to Animal Crossing: New Leaf players in Japan has been announced. Starting December 1st Japanese players will be able to receive a Festive Stump DLC item through SpotPass to place in their Animal Crossing homes.
There’s not much to say about the item really, it’s basically a Christmas themed stump with snow around it. Distribution of the item ends December 31st.
We reported a few weeks back on the sales of Animal Crossing: New Leaf in Japan based on shipment numbers coming from Iwata. Now, we have some hard retail sales numbers from Famitsu that include download cards sold at retail but not direct download purchases from the eShop.
Famitsu reports 721,786 retailcopies sold through November 5th to 11th and 315,317 retailcopies sold through November 12th to 18th. The two weeks totalled together gives us 1,037,103 retail copies and download cards sold through November 5th to 18th.
Direct digital purchases from the Nintendo eShop aren’t included in Famitsu’s numbers, however Iwata said 200,000 digital purchases were made as of November 12th. If we include those then Animal Crossing: New Leaf has sold at least 1,237,103 copies so far! More recent numbers aren’t public unfortunately.
A couple weeks ago, a new Animal Crossing: New Leaf StreetPass puzzle was sent out exclusively in Japan. Now, we have a look at the puzzle in completed form! We assume the puzzle will come to the rest of the world when the game is released here but nobody knows for sure at the moment.
It’s almost Thanksgiving and to celebrate Nintendo is sending out a Turkey Dinner DLC item to Japanese players of Animal Crossing: New Leaf through November 22nd. The Turkey Dinner can be placed on a table as seen in the picture.
Simply turn on SpotPass at the Post Office and make sure your Nintendo 3DS is connected to the internet to receive the Turkey Dinner directly from Pete at your door.
Who would have guessed? Animal Crossing: New Leaf is currently sold out across Japan with the initial shipment of 600,000 copies! An additional shipment of 300,000 more copies is expected by the end of this week which will probably sell out too.
Was that not enough? Nintendo has also sold about 200,000 downloadable copies directly through the Nintendo eShop. Clearly retail game downloads are catching on in Japan. Although some of that may be driven by the fact that the game is sold out everywhere at retail.
If you do a little math there, you’ll notice that means Nintendo has already sold 800,000 copies in just one week. All in all, Animal Crossing: New Leaf is definitely doing well in Japan! Who knows, maybe this will push Nintendo of America to hurry things up. (yeah right)
To celebrate the game’s release in Japan, Famitsu sat down with some of the developers of Animal Crossing: New Leaf to ask them about the game’s development. Of course, it was in Japanese but now Polygon has translated the interview and posted some highlights of it.
Here’s an excerpt from the article with sound director Kazumi Totaka discussing the game’s new music and sound effects:
Totaka led up a sound team in New Leaf that came up with so much new original music for this game that he has trouble picking a favorite. Music wasn’t his only focus, though. “We made an effort to program the sound engine such things like the sounds of rivers and insects were expanded upon,” he said. “A game’s sound is about a lot more than just music, after all; sound effects and the code driving it all play equally important roles. Everyone involved keeps piling up features based on what they’re good at, and we create this world together.”
To see the rest of the interview, head over to Polygon.
13 years ago
