Trivia / Animal Crossing: New Leaf

• Killer App: Sales of Animal Crossing: New Leaf were phenomenal. It sold over two million copies in Japan after only six weeks — far faster than the 3DS's installments of Mario and Zelda at the time — which also made it the second-highest-selling game of 2012 in Japan. It's estimated that approximately one-fifth of 3DS owners worldwide own a copy of the game. In Europe, it was sold with a promotional code you could give to a friend to get the game for free if they register a 3DS XL.
• Newbie Boom: New Leaf caused a rather noticeable one, introducing a lot more people to the Animal Crossing series than previous installments had. While Wild World was already the Breakthrough Hit for the series, New Leaf granted it so much further popularity that it became a flagship IP for Nintendo on par with its better-known franchises.
• Science Marches On:
  • Spinosaurus's skeleton in New Leaf. We now know it had very short legs and a notch in the middle of its sail. Fortunately, New Horizons has updated the Spinosaurus to conform with the latest discovery— though that would also be rendered inaccurate by future studies indicating it had a large, paddle-like tail.
  • The museum claims Stegosaurus's plates were covered in thick skin. Preserved stegosaur skin imprints showed that the plates were covered in horn.
• What Could Have Been: Originally, the Welcome amiibo update for New Leaf was going to be released with a linking feature to allow it to communicate with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp to obtain special furniture. But the latter game got stuck in Development Hell, so the update was released with the feature scrapped.