Nintendo recorded its strongest year during the fiscal year of March 2020 to March 2021. The culprit? Millions of people buying a Switch to keep them company during lockdowns, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Nintendo's 2020 posted record console sales: 28.8 million Switch consoles

Nintendo enjoyed its strongest fiscal year in 2020, posting record console and video game sales. Between March 2020 and March 2021, Nintendo sold 28.8 million consoles, which was an increase from the previous year's 21.5 million. 8.51 million of the 28.81 million were Nintendo Switch Lite units. As of March 2021, the console has sold 84.59 million units, paving its way to outsell the Nintendo Wii. For its entire life span, the Wii sold 101.63 million units. With the Switch's trajectory, it might beat this record by the next fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the Switch console sold 230.9 million units, almost half of its lifetime 587.12 million sales. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was 2020's most popular game, selling 20.9 million units. That's close to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe‘s 35.4 million units of lifetime sales. Animal Crossing: New Horizons helped many gamers cope with the isolation of the pandemic,  which helps explain its popularity. Furthermore, the game released nearly at the start of the lockdown period many countries entered when the pandemic started. To date, 36 Switch games have had lifetime sales of over 1 million, 22 of which were published by Nintendo.

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These figures demonstrate the Nintendo Switch's steady growth since its launch in 2017. The console's sales didn't slow down in spite of the anticipated releases of the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 towards the tail end of 2020. With the shortages both next-gen consoles are experiencing, it seems like the Nintendo Switch will remain a popular console choice.

For the fiscal year 2020-2021, Nintendo earned over $16.1 billion in sales, up by 34% from the previous year. The company's operating profits rose by 82% to $5.9 billion, with ordinary profit at $6.2 billion. This is higher compared to the previous high from March 2019, which was $4.6 billion. Regardless, Nintendo is forecasting a lower profit for the next fiscal year, to only $4.4 billion.