Nintendo’s hottest new game isn’t officially available in China yet, so online peddlers are cashing in on the shortage by selling smuggled copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons at soaring prices.
Chinese authorities, who enforce strict approval rules on games, have only approved three Nintendo Switch titles since the console launched in the country last December. All of them belong to the Mario franchise. So Animal Crossing fans have been left to rely on unofficial third-party sellers who import physical copies from Hong Kong and other places, where the latest installment of the popular franchise debuted on March 20.
On Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall shopping platforms, stores are selling imported copies for about 600 yuan (US$85), far more than it costs in Hong Kong (US$55) or the US (US$60). Even then, there seems to be no lack of customers: Sales figures listed on Taobao show some stores have sold thousands of copies. Meanwhile Chinese players who managed to get into Animal Crossing are already busy peppering their islands with pandemic-related references.
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)