Nintendo Co Ltd managed to report a 428% increase in first-quarter profit on Thursday, with this being driven by the surging demand for the Nintendo Switch console, particularly by the extremely successful game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the videogame industry, as people were forced to stay at home and find different ways to spend their free time.

The company reported an operating profit for April-June of 144.7 billion yen (€1.155 billion), which is much higher than the forecasted 71 billion yen (€570 million) that 12 analysts polled by Refinitiv SmartEstimate came up with.

During the first quarter, Nintendo managed to sell 5.7 million Switch consoles.

Titles such as Animal Crossing have prompted plenty of gamers stuck at home to buy the Nintendo Switch, with the company’s stock price reaching highs in July that have not been reached for around 12 years.

The gaming company based in Kyoto, Japan, managed to maintain its sales forecast of 19 million units of Switch consoles during the current financial unit.

Shuntaro Furukawa, the company’s Chief Executive, claimed that the boost from the pandemic is mainly transitory.

The Switch’s videogames seem to be strangely bare, with Nintendo announcing on Thursday that it will be releasing an enhanced version of the very successful Wii U game Pikmin 3, showing how much the pandemic has influenced game developers, not being able to work on a game from scratch.

The pandemic has also influenced Nintendo’s real-world plans, as they were forced to push back their plans of opening a Nintendo theme park, which was being planned along with Comcast Corporation.

Nintendo’s main rivals, Sony Corporation, reported a very sharp increase in software sales on Tuesday, with titles that are exclusive to the PlayStation 4 such as The Last Of Us Part II helping out the ageing console, pushing its lifespan even more.

As of yet, Nintendo have not announced a new console to compete with Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 5 or Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, but the release of a second version of the Switch could come late in 2021.