Last week developers of retro futuristic soviet action roleplaying game Atomic Heart released what we regarded as a clever advertisement taking aim at their biggest competitor, fantasy action roleplaying game Hogwarts Legacy set in the Harry Potter universe.

This week one website, True Achievements, is claiming some degree of success but this is definitely one of those instances of lies, damn lies and statistics.

Their specific claim is that of their million'ish registered users (across multiple platforms), 100k played Hogwarts Legacy on Xbox and 120k played Atomic Heart - making it the biggest Xbox launch of 2023 to date.

They note that Atomic Heart is included with Xbox Game Pass - a monthly subscription which includes access to a library of old and also some brand new games.

Its inclusion in that program would boost its player numbers.

What they don't note is that as part of a special PlayStation promotion, PS players receive access to a substantial extra quest in Hogwarts Legacy.

We would expect console sales to be skewed accordingly and early data tells us that 82% of console sales in the UK were PlayStation.

Doing that math for you, that would work out to roughly 500k total Hogwarts players (on this site) and were they evenly spread across consoles, they'd have beaten Atomic 2:1.

However that loss is still truly impressive.

As we detailed in relation to their advertisement, Atomic Heart is a brand new intellectual property going up against the 8th highest grossing media franchise and a game more tightly packed with features.

It will be interesting to compare sales and player figures when the dust settles but 2023 is shaping up to be another gaming year dominated by fantasy.

Hogwarts Legacy sold 12 million plus copies in its first two weeks.

Atomic Heart is available now on PC, Xbox One and X|S, and PlayStation 4 and 5.

[ Main Image: Atomic Heart. Credit: Focus Entertainment via Steam. ]

References

Albiges, Luke (February 28, 2023). Atomic Heart is 2023's most popular Xbox launch so far, first week data suggests. True Achievements.

Mass, Jennifer (February 23, 2023). ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Earns $850 Million, Sells More Than 12 Million Units in First Two Weeks. Variety.

Statista. Distribution of Hogwarts Legacy console launch sales in the United Kingdom (UK) as of February 2022, by platform. (viewed February 28, 2023)