Animal Crossing: New Horizons Best-Selling Game in US for Week Ending January 17 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 26 January 2026 / 2,819 Views
Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana Mat Piscatella has revealed Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the best-selling game in the US for the week ending January 17th in terms of units sold and in dollars.
This is the same week the Switch 2 Edition and the 3.0 update released.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition features a higher resolution, mouse controls, in-game megaphone that uses the system’s built-in microphone, online play for up to 12 players, and CameraPlay. It will be available for $64.99 for new owners, while a paid upgrade pack will be available for $4.99 for those who own the Switch version.
"Here's a fun fact, courtesy of Circana's Retail Tracking Service," said Piscatella. "Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the #1 selling physical video game for the week ending Jan 17th in both units and dollars in the US. The 3.0 content update released during the week. That's up from #27 in dollars the prior week."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Crazy that a relatively light DLC can cause AC to shoot back to the top...
Even crazier when you realize the series was considered niche before the most recent entry
I'd say it hasn't been niche since the DS days but still crazy growth from game to game
It definitely was not a niche series before New Horizons. Wild world and new leaf both sold over 10 million each. New leaf and wild world outsold every zelda released before Botw. New leaf outsold every 3d mario before odyessy
Series hasn't been niche since the N64. Even on the GameCube, it was one of the top ten selling games/
GameCube only sold 21.74 million units. The 3 versions of Animal Crossing on GameCube (2 exclusive to Japan), sold about 2.7 million units. That's relatively niche. But in all fairness, it's not a niche game in the terms of every game released. The majority of games released don't crack a million units.
What does “niche” mean in this context? Because I assumed it meant very low sales due to very specialized audience, so something like the Rune Factory franchise (prior to 4) which sold around 100,000 units per entry.
But Animal Crossing sold Animal Crossing sold ~36 million units across its first four entries and had an iPhone version with 65 million downloads and generating 285 million US dollars in sales. The lowest selling game was the original which still sold in the millions despite being on failed platforms… the second entry sold 11.75 million units and was one of the best selling games of the generation.
Not a good sign for the industry, imo.
Take that, The Least of Us Number 2.
