Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Sales Already Beating Hogwarts Legacy
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom just released on Friday, May 12th, but the Nintendo Switch game is already proving to be a massive success. While sales data for North America isn't in just yet, the game is off to an excellent start in the UK. According to GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring, physical sales for Tears of the Kingdom have already put it ahead of Hogwarts Legacy, which was previously the best-selling physical game release in the region for 2022; the Zelda sequel has seen physical sales 54% bigger than the Harry Potter spin-off. Dring believes it's "likely" that Hogwarts Legacy had a bigger digital release, but since Nintendo does not offer sales data for the eShop, there's simply no way of knowing for sure.
Part of Dring's Tweet thread about Tears of the Kingdom can be found embedded below.
Sorry, compared to Hogwarts, Zelda’s UK boxed launch is 54% bigger. Not a third.
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) May 14, 2023
Not only is Tears of the Kingdom beating Hogwarts Legacy, it's already the UK's eighth best-selling Zelda game of all-time! As Dring notes, Tears of the Kingdom has passed The Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, and A Link Between Worlds in physical sales, and its launch was 173% bigger than Breath of the Wild. When accounting simply for revenue, Tears of the Kingdom is actually in fourth place, currently trailing Ocarina of Time (at number three), and Twilight Princess (at number two).
According to sales data released by Nintendo last week, Breath of the Wild is currently sitting at 29.81 million units sold worldwide. The Switch launch title is the best-selling Zelda game ever released, as well as the fourth best-selling game on the platform. Once we have more sales data from the rest of the world, it will be interesting to see where Tears of the Kingdom ends up on both of those lists! There has been a significant amount of hype surrounding the game for years now; combined with the game's excellent reviews, it's a safe bet Tears of the Kingdom will continue to sell quite well!
Did you grab Tears of the Kingdom yet? Are you surprised how well it's selling? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!