'Guild Wars 2' hits 400k concurrent users in pre-launch weekend

Guild Wars 2 managed to host 400,000 concurrent players during a pre-launch weekend headstart session, publisher NCSoft announced in a press release today.

Guild Wars 2 managed to host 400,000 concurrent players during a pre-launch weekend headstart session, publisher NCSoft announced in a press release today.

The headstart weekend was made available to any player who pre-purchased the game in full, giving them access to the title a full three days before its official launch this morning. NCSoft announced that over one million units of the game were pre-purchased to gain access to the early session, and 400,000 of those buyers were logged into the game at the same time over the weekend. Not only are those numbers impressive for the game's sales, but also for the servers, which didn't completely and totally explode under the weight of the MMO's opening.

By comparison, research firm Baird Equity Research estimated that Star Wars: The Old Republic had around 350,000 peak concurrent users across its servers in early January 2012, shortly after it launched. Of course, at that point, The Old Republic required a monthly subscription, while Guild Wars 2 does not.

We've reached out to NCSoft and ArenaNet to try to learn how the game has been selling since its official launch.