Blizzard is happy to announce that World of Warcraft has become the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America; it has sold so well, that servers can't keep up with demand.

World of Warcraft screenshot

During a period in which numerous records have been broken over all formats, Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft - their highly anticipated entry into the online role-playing market - has smashed sales records in North America, notching up in excess of 350,000 sales in the first weekend, with well-over 200,000 of those sales coming on the first day.

The scale of success has been somewhat underestimated by Blizzard, with the servers bearing the brunt of having up to 100,000 players logged in at the same time. Due to overcrowding - with more potential sales to come - Blizzard have taken steps to get more servers online, and rumours are that new sales will be held up until the new servers are in place, with the company saying in a statement that they are "currently evaluating its ability to ship additional games to retailers, given the unexpectedly high demand on the servers,".

The game, which has garnered critical acclaim following its' US release last week, is not due to be released over here in Europe until early 2005, with the beta having only just started.

We will have hands on impressions of the game in the coming weeks.