EA’s football game is not No.1 in the UK in 2023

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, it was the Harry Potter-inspired game, Hogwarts Legacy, that ended the year as the No. 1 best-selling video game in the UK. This means that for the first time in over 10 years, the EA sports football franchise, formally known as FIFA, is ‘not’ the biggest-selling game in the country.

This has not been the case since all the way back in 2013 when Grand Theft Auto 5 ended the year in the No.1 position. As far as 2023 goes, there are a number of factors that may have contributed to the popular football franchise dropping down a place.

For starters, 2023 was the first year in its 30-year history that the game launched under a new name and not under the FIFA license. This was due to the fact that EA and FIFA were unable to come to an agreement on new terms for the game and might have been the primary reason why sales were slightly down compared to recent years.

Another component contributing to the reason why EA Sports FC 24 was beaten to the No.1 spot by Hogwarts Legacy, was that the Wizarding World RPG was released on most platforms back in February, whereas EA Sports FC 2024 didn’t hit shelves until September.

Over half of Hogwarts Legacy’s physical sales came on the PlayStation 5, but overall sales of the game were also boosted by releases on the PS4 in May and the Nintendo Switch in November. These multiple release dates no doubt greatly added to the success of the title.

In the UK throughout 2023, nearly 13 million physical video game copies were purchased. Although this is an impressive number by any industry standard, it is a decrease of almost 5% compared with 2022. This shows the continuing trend of gamers preferring to buy their games from online stores over physical retailers.

As well as being the No.1 selling game of the year, Hogwarts Legacy was the No.1 selling title in the final week of 2023, according to the GSD charts. Despite dropping in sales week-over-week, it still managed to claim the No.1 spot, squeaking by Super Mario Bros Wonder, which came in just behind at No.2.

Some other notable mentions for the week are Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 finishing the year in the No.3 position despite disappointing reviews, and Mario Kart 8: Deluxe moving up a couple of places to the No.4 spot. Spider-Man 2, remained strong in the No.5 slot, while EA Sports FC 24, despite being No.2 overall for the year, dropped five places this week to the No.6 position.