If you had any doubt whatsoever that we Brits love both football and magic, all you have to do is look at the physical game sales over the past 11 or so months. Ever since Hogwarts Legacy made its arrival in February 2023, Avalanche's title and EA's current football game (be that FIFA 23 or EA Sports FC 24) have been fighting to be crowned the biggest boxed game of the week in the UK.
Aside from stint where The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom reigned supreme at the start of the summer, and a few weeks in the autumn when Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 jostled for the crown, it has largely just been the Wizarding World and the football world clashing, and following this being the case for the majority of December, January 2024 seems to be a similar situation so far.
GamesIndustry reports that EA Sports FC 24 is back on top, knocking Hogwarts Legacy down into second in the weekly charts. It's suggested that this change is due to recent sales and promotions that have seen the football game receive a 42% surge in sales on PlayStation consoles.
Beyond these two physical titans, Mortal Kombat has had an excellent week, with Mortal Kombat 1 in third and Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate in fourth. Then came Super Mario Bros. Wonder in fifth, ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III in sixth. The eternal Mario Kart 8 Deluxe took seventh, ahead of Grand Theft Auto V in eighth and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 in ninth, with It Takes Two rounding out the top ten, once again due to recent promotions driving sales.
While we'll have to wait a week to see what next week brings to the table, a betting man would suggest that we'll see either Hogwarts Legacy or EA Sports FC 24 on top, until the week following when some huge games have had a chance to make their arrival known. Cough, cough... Tekken 8 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.