Hogwarts Legacy has lived up to the hype, and the stats speak for themselves. The Warner Bros. Games RPG has been on everyone's lips since the start of the year, and now it holds the record for the biggest launch in the Harry Potter franchise, in addition to being at the top of the charts.
According to GfK data, Hogwarts Legacy sales are 64% higher than the previous best game of the franchise, 2001's Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. As a matter of fact, the 2001 title recorded greater sales in the second week after its launch due to the boost it received from the release of its film counterpart. Despite that, sales of Hogwarts Legacy are still higher by 2% in comparison to that week.
Given that Hogwarts Legacy has the added benefit of digital downloads (the data for digital sales is yet to be released), we can confidently assert that the 2023 game will surpass the sales of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by a much greater margin. Back home in the UK, the Harry Potter franchise is the 26th biggest video game franchise, just behind the Forza franchise but ahead of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda.
It's worth noting that Hogwarts Legacy has already sold 80% more physical copies in its first week than 2022's GOTY, Elden Ring. 82% of the sales have come from Sony's PS5 consoles and 18% from Microsoft's Xbox Series X/S. However, it's highly likely that Xbox will close the gap in sales once digital sales are released since the console performs better on digital sales due to the popular digital-only Xbox Series S.
The PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions are scheduled to be released later in the year, which means Hogwarts Legacy might retain the top spot on the charts for a long period of time. God of War: Ragnarok still holds the second spot on the list and now ranks above FIFA 23, which has dropped into third place.
A few days ago, Hogwarts Legacy set a new player record on Steam after becoming the 11th game on the digital service to surpass half a million concurrent players. The new record was set less than 48 hours after the game's launch.
