The Nintendo Beast Crosses the 5k Subscriber Milestone

I’m reporting this a little bit late, but I needed to make a post about this incredible achievement. It’s an accomplishment not only for my channel and myself, but also for the members of the community I’ve been building with The Nintendo Beast project over the past roughly 6 years (the channel was created in 2010, but I start actively making content for it in 2020).

The Nintendo Beast officially crossed the 5k subscriber threshold on YouTube on December 25, 2025. That’s right, on Christmas Day! If that’s not serendipitous enough, I actually only became aware that the threshold had been crossed because my Discord server lit up with excitement as soon as it happened. I can’t begin to express how cool it was to have some of my day 1 subscribers and supporters bring the channel’s achievement to my attention on Christmas Day. It was truly a perfect Christmas gift!

As I had promised in advance, once I crossed 5k subscribers I began planning a 24 hour long Animal Crossing live stream on the channel – which I kicked off this past Friday, January 23rd at 3pm ET. It was a heavily caffeinated affair, but it was great getting to play all 5 of the main Animal Crossing games while chatting with many of my subscribers in live chat – both returning viewers and new viewers alike!

I’m currently in the process of breaking down the recorded video of the live stream (over 20 hours of content to edit down) into individual 20-40 minute long let’s play episodes for each game, but the first in that endeavor officially posted today on the channel! This video marks episode 82 of my Let’s Play: Animal Crossing on GameCube video series.

As 2026 rolls along, I of course plan to keep posting new let’s play videos for new Nintendo games while also revisiting some retro classics on the channel, but I have big plans for my ongoing Animal Crossing let’s plays as well. There’s a real meaningful reason I chose to play Animal Crossing games on this celebratory stream. First of all, the Animal Crossing game series is my favorite of all time. Animal Crossing: City Folk, in fact, is my absolute favorite game of all time. City Folk was the game that got me excited enough to launch The Nintendo Beast channel in the first place back in 2010. Some of the most popular videos on the channel to this day are a couple of fun modding clips and bug catching clips (as well as a since-taken-down-for-copyright full day music video that was my first and only video to ever surpass 1 million views) from back in those early days!

In 2020, when I decided to pick the controller back up at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, what game led the charge? The newly released and culturally significant Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Animal Crossing has always been the bread and butter of my channel, and so it only feels fit that I continue on and dive even deeper into my love for this iconic and wholesome game series.

Stay tuned for so much more Animal Crossing in the near future – but in case you missed it, check out my documentary from 2021!