Hogwarts Legacy beats out Call of Duty to become 2023’s bestselling game

By Tomas Franzese January 18, 2024

A student waving a wand in Hogwarts Legacy. — WB Games

Circana’s Mat Piscatella has released video game market highlights for 2023, and WB Games’ Hogwarts Legacy ended up being the bestselling game of 2023, beating out the likes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

“Hogwarts Legacy finished as 2023’s bestselling video game in the U.S. market in dollar sales. It is the first year since 2008 that a non-Call of Duty or Rockstar-developed title ranked 1st (Rock Band),” Piscatella explained on X. “Hogwarts Legacy was the bestselling game of the year on PlayStation platforms, ranked 2nd on Xbox platforms, and placed 5th on Nintendo platforms.”

That’s an impressive feat for the Harry Potter prequel game, which proved quite controversial upon its release earlier in 2023 due to the transphobic views of series author J.K. Rowling. Piscatella also pointed out that “Call of Duty was the bestselling franchise in U.S. full game dollar sales for a record 15th consecutive year.” That’s a record that’ll be much harder for another series to break anytime soon.

Overall, Piscatella revealed that “video game content spending ended 2023 1% higher than 2022, driven by a 13% increase in digital premium download (full game) spending on console platforms.” The full top 20 bestselling games list is as follows:

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 IV
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Mortal Kombat 1
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
EA Sports FC 24
Starfield
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Resident Evil 4
MLB The Show 23
Dead Island 2
Final Fantasy XVI
Street Fighter 6
Elden Ring
Mario Kart 8
Minecraft

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Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

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