SWTOR's 1.7 million paid subscribers may hit 2 million soon

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello told investors that as of the end of February, Star Wars: The Old Republic has nearly 1.7 million paid subscribers with the "vast majority" playing beyond the free month of playtime. Because of this, Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz has estimated it will go up to 2 million monthly subscribers as of June 2012.

The figure, it appears, has remained steady since the end of January, when EA stated the game had 1.7 million subs and had sold 2 million copies.

"We continue to feel comfortable with our Star Wars estimates which are an important part of our street-high FY13 non-GAAP EPS estimate of $1.36. We estimate 2MM paying subs by the end of June 2012 and then sustained for the remainder of the year," he said in a note obtained by GI.biz.

Cruetz said the launch of the MMO in the Asia-Pacific region later this month will be a boon as well.

Last week, a report from market research firm DFC Intelligence concluded Star Wars: The Old Republic had "the potential to be a successful long-term online subscription PC game,” despite a “general decline in high-end subscription game products and growing competition from numerous free-to-play games.”

The data in the report was collected in conjunction with Xfire user data from December 20 through February 20 and a January 2012 Xfire survey which saw over 4,000 participants.