Overview
- Overall game sales down 10% despite ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ being a big hit
- Its launch sales were bigger than ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ and ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II’
- PS5 sales 5x from last February, Xbox Series X|S up 13%
- Switch sales drop 28% across Europe, similarly down in the UK
”Hogwarts Legacy” has become the sixth-biggest launch sales for a video game since it began charting in Europe six years ago.
The only predecessor game is the “FIFA” series. In other words, “Hogwarts Legacy” will have larger launch sales than all the “Call of Duty” series released since 2017, as well as other blockbusters such as “Red Dead Redemption 2” and “Elden Ring”. It will be recorded.
Just three weeks after its release, Hogwarts Legacy is already the best-selling game of the past 12 months, following FIFA 23, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Grand Theft Auto V and Elden Ring. It is ranked 5th.
But despite the huge success of the Warner Bros title, February game sales in Europe were down 10% compared to February last year, with 12.9 million games sold.
The data comes from the GSD and includes physical game sales in major European markets (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc.). See the bottom of the article for details.
The decrease in game sales is due to the smaller number of releases compared to February last year, when several major new titles such as “ELDEN RING”, “Horizon Forbidden West”, “Dying Light 2”, and “Total War: WARHAMMER III” were released. It is due to Last year, sales of “Pokémon LEGENDS Arceus” in its second month were also strong.
Legacy titles also performed poorly this year. Compared to February 2021, GTA V sales are down 35% and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sales are down 39%. “Red Dead Redemption 2” was the notable exception, posting a 6% year-on-year increase.
And the next ranked new work was the war shooter “Atomic Heart”, which came in 9th place.
Elsewhere, ‘The Last of Us Part II’ and ‘The Last of Us Remastered’ soared on the charts with a boost from HBO’s TV series based on the game. Part II sales increased 317% compared to February last year, and Remastered sales increased 285%.
This chart doesn’t include all of February’s biggest consumer and PC titles. Nintendo doesn’t share digital data with major AAA game publishers, so the company’s Metroid Prime Remastered (which made a surprise launch on the Nintendo eShop mid-month) isn’t included. It also doesn’t include the much-talked-about survival game Sons of the Forest, as it doesn’t currently include games from most smaller publishers.
PS5 and Xbox have strong sales in February
Among consumer consoles, the PS5 saw a significant increase in unit sales across Europe last month, increasing fivefold from February last year. As for the PS5, it was extremely weak at the beginning of last year as it suffered a severe global inventory shortage.
GSD’s hardware data covers multiple European markets, but two of the largest regions are missing: the United Kingdom and Germany. The UK hardware report can be found here.
The PS5 has become the best-selling console in the European market, with sales more than double that of the Nintendo Switch in second place. Switch sales are down 28% across Europe, with a similar drop in the UK. Nintendo’s next big move on Switch is in the second quarter of this year, with activity scheduled for a new Zelda and Mario movie.
The Xbox Series X|S is number three across Europe, but saw a 13% increase in sales compared to February last year.
Accessories sold in the European market decreased by 0.2% to 1.27 million units. The segment continues to record strong sales for the PS5’s DualSense controller, driven by the consumer market.
Points and wallet sales were down 8% year-on-year with 1.15 million cards sold across Europe.
GSD February 2023 Europe Top 20 (digital version + physical version)
| rank | title |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros.) |
| 2 | FIFA 23 (EA) |
| 3 | Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar) |
| Four | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (Activision Blizzard) |
| Five | NBA 2K23 (2K Games) |
| 6 | Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar) |
| 7 | The Last of Us Part II (Sony) |
| 8 | God of War Ragnarok (Sony) |
| 9 | Atomic Heart (Focus Entertainment) |
| Ten | Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) * |
| 11 | Borderlands 3 (2K Games) |
| 12 | Dead Space (EA) |
| 13 | Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft) |
| 14 | It Takes Two (EA) |
| 15 | Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo) * |
| 16 | The Last of Us Remastered (Sony) |
| 17 | WWE 2K22 (2K Games) |
| 18 | Sid Meier’s Civilization VI (2K Games) |
| 19 | Gran Turismo 7 (Sony) |
| 20 | Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Nintendo/Mojang) * |
*No digital data
GSD’s digital data includes participating companies’ games sold through Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Nintendo eShop. Main participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group (Gearbox, Koch Media, Saber Interactive, etc.), Focus Entertainment, Konami, Marvelous Games, Microids, Microsoft (Bethesda, etc.), Milestone, Nacon, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Take-Two, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo, 505 Games and smaller studios not included.
The digital version data includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Includes games sold in Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Physical data includes games sold in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Consumer console sales cover Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Accessories are similar, but Switzerland is not included.