Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has already sold more copies than its 3DS predecessor, according to Nintendo’s figures.
The comedy life sim was released on Nintendo Switch on April 16, and enjoyed generally favourable reviews, with a Metacritic score of 77.
The game’s potential for word-of-mouth popularity due to user sharing its sillier moments on social media, however – including a demo version released before the game’s launch – have likely contributed to strong sales making it the best selling Tomodachi game to date.
In its latest financial report, Nintendo said the game had sold 7.96 million copies by the end of Q1 of its current fiscal year (the end of June), and noted that as of August 5 that number had now grown to more than 8 million copies sold.
The first game in the series, Tomodachi Collection, was released on the Nintendo DS in 2009 and was exclusive to Japan. Despite only being available in a single region, the game sold 3.2 million copies making it the second best-selling Japan exclusive on the DS (behind English Training).
Its success led to a 3DS sequel, Tomodachi Life, which was also released internationally unlike its predecessor. The result was total sales of 6.73 million copies worldwide, making it the 11th best selling 3DS game ever.
With 8 million copies sold in three and a half months, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is now the best-selling game in the series, with Nintendo noting that the game “is being enjoyed by people of all ages, regardless of gender”.
Previously Japan-only, Tomodachi now sells more overseas
Of particular interest is the fact that of the 7.96 million copies of the game sold worldwide by the end of June, 2.55 million of these were sold in Japan and 5.39 million were sold overseas.
Given that the original game was exclusive to Japan and some believed the sheer amount of text involved would make an international release difficult, the series appears to be enjoying strong success outside of its native Japan.
That’s not to say it hasn’t done well there too, of course – in its first week of release in Japan, the game not only topped the physical charts, but outsold the rest of the Top 10 combined, seven times over.
VGC’s Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream review called it “a hilarious helping of nonsense”, but warned that it did get somewhat repetitive after a while.
“Like its predecessors, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is an entertaining collection of ridiculously random set-pieces, tied together in an easy-to-play life sim,” we said. “It does start getting repetitive after a few weeks, but the exceptionally localised dialogue and the scope for heavy customisation makes it a game the entire family can enjoy regardless.”
