Hogwarts Legacy is the top selling game of 2023

Yes, it’s official. The best-selling game for 2023 was the Harry Potter inspired open-world action RPG, Hogwarts Legacy. With its initial release on February 10, the wizarding world title – published by Warner Bros – outsold its nearest rival, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom by around 1.7 million copies.

The recent disclosure of the financial reports from Nintendo showed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold just under 20.3 million copies in 2023, from physical and digital sales combined. On the other hand, Warner Bros. Games recently revealed that Hogwarts Legacy has now sold over 22 million copies across all platforms.

The publicizing of these end-of-year figures has now officially confirmed Hogwarts Legacy to be the No.1 best-selling game of this past year, out of any in the entire industry worldwide.

Even though Hogwarts Legacy topped the sales charts for most of the year, there was some speculation that perhaps one of the other big AAA titles such as Zelda, Call of Duty, or EA Sports FC 24, could potentially snatch the No.1 spot in the busy holiday sales period, but this proved not to be the case.

With that said, it has to be mentioned that some of these games were released later in the year compared to Hogwarts Legacy’s initial February launch. For example, Tears of the Kingdom launched in May, exclusively on the Nintendo Switch, while EA Sports FC 24 and Call of Duty: MW3 only launched in September and November respectively.

It would be interesting to compare the sales of these titles during a similar period of time of one year. Another factor that also worked in Hogwarts Legacy’s favor was the fact that it had multiple release dates across different platforms.

The game was initially released on the PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 on February 10, and then saw later releases on the PS4 and Xbox One on May 5, followed by a Nintendo Switch release on November 14.

These particulars shouldn’t take away anything from the incredible success of the game though, as it is extremely rare that any new IP ends the year as the No.1 selling title.

Following on from the success of Hogwarts Legacy, Harry Potter fans will have a lot more to look forward to soon. With the upcoming Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions and a number of other things having been hinted at by Warner Bros. Games being announced in the near future, it’s potentially a very good time to be a Harry Potter fan.