For as long as people have been indoors during the COVID outbreak, they have looked for ways to pass the time. The easy way is to have a hobby, and one of the bigger hobbies out there is gaming. Whether you enjoy playing on Xbox, PlayStation, or PC, its possible that they’ve been one of the biggest reasons you’ve kept your sanity these past few months.

But what made the Nintendo Switch so successful during this time?

It’s important to know how successful the Switch was this year. According to Nintendo themselves, they’ve sold almost 6 million units during the months of April-June. In addition, their revenue during this time is well over $1 billion, adding to the $3 billion in revenue from the Switch in its 3-year life.

The Switch is a very popular console when it comes to portability, as it’s both a home console as well as a gaming tablet you can take with you anywhere. With the inability to go out, the latter feature of the Switch wasn’t exactly appealing. That said, a remarkable game to play will always be more important for a gaming console, and Nintendo had something that seemed like it was perfect for a virus outbreak.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a creative role-playing game where you create your own island from scratch, explore other player’s islands, and talk to cute, funny creatures. It screams both exploration and imagination in a time where both attributes were lacking. You couldn’t visit your friends house in real life, but meeting up online in a game? No problem!

It should be no surprise that New Horizons sold over 10 million copies during April-June, adding on to its lifetime sales number of 22 million copies. Considering one copy of the game is $60, that large $1 billion in revenue makes a bit more sense.

To sum it up, the features of the Switch didn’t make it successful during the COVID outbreak. There really wasn’t a drop in price, either. What made the Switch successful was the perfect game to accompany a pandemic. It’s almost as if Nintendo planned for an event like this, as New Horizons was delayed to March of 2020, right at the beginning of jobs, schools, and morale being shut down.

It just goes to show that having an incredible game is more important than having remarkable graphics or fancy features; as is usually the case with Nintendo. Despite being behind, they always find a way to come out on top.