Animal Crossing is a hit, the Switch takes off: 2020, a record year for Nintendo

Even the Covid-19 will not have slowed down Mario's race.

Nintendo on Monday presented its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2020, the last of the calendar year and the third of the fiscal year (which runs until March).

At the end of an exceptional year because of the health crisis, the Japanese video game giant is more successful: from March to December, it achieved a turnover of more than 11 billion euros, already more than in the previous full fiscal year.

The reason is twofold: the unexpected success of

and record sales of the Switch.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons

, already the second best-selling game on Switch

If there was a hymn to be composed for 2020, it would start with the few notes from the main theme of

.

The management game with cute animals that settle on a desert island is THE box of the year: 31 million copies sold since its release in March.

We have to go back to 2013 and the release of

to find traces of such a phenomenon.

No episode of the series has so far exceeded 15 million sales.

But the fifth installment, released just before the first confinements in Europe, served as a haven for players during this difficult period.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

is now behind

, the best-selling game in Switch history with 33 million copies sold since 2017. But this essential classic will not be easily dethroned since 10.45 million copies are still gone in 2020, its best year.

And Nintendo has gone all out with its catalog of games, even the oldest have seen record sales: 5 million for

and

(which becomes the first

to exceed 20 million since

in 2000) and 3 million for

, proof that the famous plumber is still popular. 

The Switch hits the mark, Nintendo's profits soar

And the success of the games is reflected in the sales of the Switch.

While Sony and Microsoft are tearing their hair out to produce a few hundred thousand units of their new consoles, the Japanese manufacturer is on cloud nine with 27 million units sold in 2020. It is simply the best year of the Switch since its release!

The previous record dated from 2019, with already 20 million consoles sold.

In total, the Switch is the delight of 80 million players.

Next step: to exceed 100 million copies of the Wii.

Race results, from March to December, Nintendo achieved an operating profit of 4.1 billion euros, double that of 2019 over the same period.

And over the entire fiscal year, the Japanese giant expects a net profit of 3.15 billion euros, 50% more than in its previous best financial year, achieved in 2008. The only downside, the "Joy-Con drift", a mechanical issue that affects thousands of Switch controllers, remains unresolved.

An action has even just been launched on a European scale by the UFC-Que Choisir.