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Nintendo (NTDOY) Q1 2022 earnings release showcases tough Animal Crossing year-over-year comparisons

Software sales on the Nintendo Switch are down year-on-year, as are hardware sales.

Sam Chandler

August 5, 2021 1:35 AM

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the game that everyone needed during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. And now, over a year since its release, people are still buying the game, but not at the same rate. Nintendo revealed in its Q1 2022 earnings report that software sales were down 10.2% year-on-year.

On August 5, 2021, Nintendo released its Q1 2022 earnings report via its Investor Relations page. In this report, Nintendo notes that the large sales of hardware and software in the first quarter of the previous fiscal year were driven by Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While a lot of players were indeed excited for the sequel, the game’s release also coincided with COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns. It’s not hard to find a correlation between the two events. That is to say, people were likely buying more games to deal with the effects of the pandemic.

The report offers some actual statistics on the decrease in the sales figures, “Hardware and software sales in the first quarter of last fiscal year were substantially driven by the March 2020 release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so compared to then, hardware sales were down 21.7% and software sales were down 10.2% year-on-year.”

As it stands, Animal Crossing: New Horizons sits at 33.89 million units sold. This places it 3.19 million units behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the best-selling game on Nintendo Switch at 37.08 million units sold.

Though the software sales are down this fiscal year, Animal Crossing: New Horizons still stands as a defining title of our times. There’s still three more quarters left in Nintendo’s fiscal year and numerous titles players are anticipating, such as Metroid Dread. Take a moment to look over the Shacknews NTDOY page for more information on the Q1 2021 earnings report.

Sam Chandler

Guides Editor

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as a Guides Editor. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler