SUMMARY
- Hogwarts Legacy was a surprise and delight for Harry Potter fans as it threw players in the world of Hogwarts with a custom character and RPG elements.
- Hogwarts Legacy broke records and ended a streak set by Call of Duty and Rockstar.
For the past 13 years, it has almost become like a tradition that Call of Duty and Rockstar Games would dominate the US game market. However, 2023 broke the trend and for the first time ever another game ruled the markets.
Although Hogwarts Legacy was not that of a hit with critics when it was released in February 2023. It did win a few awards but was still behind. Nonetheless, one cannot overlook the fact that there are a lot of Harry Potter fans across the globe and Hogwarts Legacy was the first big, AAA open-world game set in the Harry Potter universe, which led to its massive success.
Hogwarts Legacy becomes the best-selling title in 2023
Since 2009, it was always either a Call of Duty game or the newest release from Rockstar Games that was named the No. 1 best-selling title of the year in the United States. However, there was a different story to tell in 2023. The lengthy run of dominance of Call of Duty and Rockstar came to an end.
2023 Year Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games on PlayStation Platforms – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from DLP members, Excludes add-on content) pic.twitter.com/VKENys25VX
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) January 18, 2024
Recently, the 2023 US video game industry sales data was released, and everyone was surprised to see that Portkey Games’ Hogwarts Legacy finished at the top of 2023’s No. 1 best-selling game. It outsold Modern Warfare III and every other game of 2023.
Mat Piscatella, executive director of video games at Circana, mentioned that Hogwarts Legacy was the best-selling game of the year in the U.S. in terms of dollar sales on PlayStation platforms. Additionally, it ranked second on Xbox platforms, and fifth on Nintendo platforms.
Which were the Top 10 Best Selling Games of 2023 in the U.S?
Hogwarts Legacy overpowered Activision’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to claim the top spot, as the latter took the second place. EA’s Madden NFL 24 was placed third, followed by Sony’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at fourth and fifth respectively.
2023 Year Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from DLP members, Excludes add-on content) pic.twitter.com/LR6Za5YQ24
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) January 18, 2024
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
- Madden NFL 24
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Diablo 4
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Star Wars Jedi Survivor
- EA Sports FC 24
Although Circana, the publisher of the report does not reveal individual sales figures for video games in the states, it is known that Hogwarts Legacy sold about 22 million copies globally in 2023. Meanwhile, the highly acclaimed Spider-Man 2 sold more than five million copies in just 11 days to become the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game. In over 24 hours, it sold more than 2.5 million copies.
How did Hogwarts Legacy break CoD and Rockstar’s streak?
There are multiple reasons that helped Hogwarts Legacy break Call of Duty and Rockstar’s long-standing tradition. Firstly Hogwarts Legacy was released in February 2023, while Modern Warfare III was released in November. Thus the Harry Potter game had spent more than half a year extra on the shelves.
Additionally, Piscatella also informed IGN that Modern Warfare II was selling worse than how Modern Warfare II sold a year ago. Not to forget, Modern Warfare III also had poor reviews compared to Modern Warfare II and any other previous installment in the series. However, irrespective, Modern Warfare III was still doing commercial well, being the No. 1 best-selling game of November and December in the US.
Another factor that favored Hogwarts Legacy was the fact that the game just recently came to Nintendo Switch and has been achieving great numbers on that platform. On the contrary, Modern Warfare III is unavailable on Switch.
As far as Rockstar Games is concerned, it was any way out of the race since the developers had no releases in 2023. Except 2021’s Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition’s release on Android and iOS in December 2023.
