FFXIV Chinese CBT2 Pre-Access Sold Out in Less than 1 Hour

Yesterday, Shanda Games, the operator of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn in China announced that the 2nd CBT of Chinese FFXIV: ARR will start on July 22, 2014. Earlier in Guangzhou Cosplay Fanfest on June 29th, Naoki handed the CBT2 version of FFXIV: ARR to Shanda Games.

Shanda Games also announced the release of an "Eorzea Passport" for RMB 39 (approximately 7.5 US dollars). With this passport, players will be able to participate in the 2nd and later CBT of FFXIV: ARR, and the money paid for this passport will be refunded as play time with equal value when the official launch start. Also, players with this Eorzea Passport will be able to get a Coeurl Mount or a Moogle Cap as gift.

The sale of Eorzea Passport started on 13:00 Beijing time (GMT +8), Shanda Games prepared 4,000 copies Eorzea Passports for today. However, on 13:57, Shanda announced on official blog that all 4,000 passports were sold out, and apologized for the network congestion during purchase. Tomorrow, more passports will be available for sale.

Chinese players showed enough passion in the presale today, this will definitely enhance Shanda's confidence in launching FFXIV in China successfully.

From Reddit

My take on this : since servers will be separated, EU/NA/JP all in one servers will not be effected by the huge increase in population, but the income from Chinese market will add even more assurance to the game future in terms of content and value.