Football has proven itself a dominating sport among people in the UK, transcending to video games, with yearly sales putting the FIFA franchise at the top. This record was temporarily broken with the launch of Grand Theft Auto V when the game launched in 2013 but has since maintained its position in the years since.
It has been a decade since that phenomenon took place. However, one game broke that trend once again as Hogwarts Legacy reigned supreme in the UK’s 2023 sales chart, according to GamesIndustry.biz.
Not to be mistaken as a case of EA dropping the “FIFA” label in favor of “Football Club,” following a licensing issue. But even with EA Sports FC 24, the football franchise simply was not able to keep up with the strong gaming community’s interest in the Harry Potter-based adventure title.
Based on the same report, it is said that the boxed PlayStation 5 version of Hogwarts Legacy accounted for over half of 2023’s overall sales. That is only speaking of the physical copies of the PS5 version of the game, as there are also records of sales for the PS4 and the Switch.
Putting a figure for the UK’s total boxed sales in 2023, GfK said 12.76 million. Interestingly, last year’s cumulative sales throughout its entirety were nearly 5 percent lower than in 2022.
Despite having a 33 percent drop in week-on-week sales, Hogwarts Legacy managed to rise three places to the number one spot. It beat Mario Bros. Wonder, putting it in second place, which itself suffered a 63 percent drop in week-on-week sales.
