The Animal Crossing series has appeared on every Nintendo home console since the N64 (at least in Japan) and saw a handheld version with Wild World on the DS. While it's always been something noteworthy in the Big N's software lineups, it's never been a force like this.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf for Nintendo 3DS has already sold a million units in Japan, after only hitting the market three weeks ago. If you follow Japanese sales charts, you know that about 49 out of 50 times, the number-one seller will not hold the top spot for more than a week. It's truly one-and-done on the Japanese charts, and staying there for two weeks in a row means the game in question is a juggernaut. But three weeks in a row, like Animal Crossing: New Leaf has now accomplished? This is insane. We're looking at Mario and Monster Hunter levels of sales and demand, here.
Though this week, the victory comes with an asterisk. Call of Duty: Black Ops II has two versions available. Add them together, and they do exceed this week's Animal Crossing sales. First Halo 4 debuted at number three, now Black Ops II selling more than 200k in its opener and combining to be the highest-selling title in the Land of the Rising Sun? Is Japan filling up with reverse weeaboos now? What would you even call that? Westaboos? Weemericans? I don't know what you'd call it, but I do know that the Media Create software charts are right here:
1. (3DS) Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 213,414
2. (PS3) Call of Duty: Black Ops II – 197,350
3. (3DS) Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Magnagate and the Infinite Dungeon – 121,480
4. (PS3) Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational – 100,862
5. (3DS) New Super Mario Bros, 2 – 34,971
6. (360) Call of Duty: Black Ops II – 22,177
7. (3DS) E.X. Troopers – 17,402
8. (PS3) Assassin's Creed III – 16,379
9. (3DS) Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate – 11,369
10. (3DS) Dangerous Ji-San to 1000-nin no Otomodachi Yokoshima – 10,452
11. (PS3) E.X. Troopers – 8,717
12. (3DS) Ouchi Mainichi Tamagotchi – 8,643
13. (PSP) Wand of Fortune 2 FD: Kimi ni Sasageru Epilogue – 8,023
14. (3DS) Tousouchuu: Shijou Saikyou no Hunter-Tachi Kara Nigekire! – 7,627
15. (PS3) Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires – 7,462
16. (PSP) Summon Night 4 – 7,405
17. (3DS) Style Savvy: Trendsetters – 7,364
18. (PSP) Kokoro Connect: Yochi Random – 7,163
19. (3DS) Bravely Default: Flying Fairy – 7,017
20. (PS3) World Soccer Winning Eleven 2013 – 6,967
Hardware showed 3DS once again in full flight, and of course, PS Vita dropped back below 10k, since it had no new software releases.
3DS – 162,077
PS3 – 34,167
PSP – 16,903
PSV – 9,712
WII – 3,590
360 – 1,495
PS2 – 747
NDS – 452
Even the Hindman house is getting infected by Animal Crossing fever. My wife looked at the system in the 3DS New Leaf hardware bundle and said "Oh, that looks so neat!" Now I have things to think about with Christmas coming up. I was going to do what I usually do and give my wife the gift of letting her give me gifts, but maybe it goes in reverse this year. Maybe.
