DICE addresses disappearance of PS3 Battlefield 3 bonus

At Sony's Electronic Entertainment Expo media briefing in June, SCEA president Jack Tretton announced PlayStation 3-exclusive bonuses for a trio of multiplatform Electronic Arts games. One such enticement was that every PS3 copy of the DICE-developed first-person shooter Battlefield 3 would include a copy of 2009's downloadable Battlefield 1943 on the Blu-ray disc.

Battlefield 3 officially launched yesterday, and as observant PS3 owners might have noticed, that bonus is nowhere to be found. DICE explained the absence yesterday with a post on the game's official Twitter feed, saying, "In lieu of 1943 being available on disk for PS3 customers, EA has made all BF3 expansions available early to PS3 customers."

Last month, EA announced that all Battlefield 3 add-ons and map packs would launch on Sony's hardware one week before appearing on the Xbox 360 or PC. That includes the Back to Karkand expansion, expected to launch later this year. The pack features multiplayer environments from the PC-exclusive Battlefield 2, such as Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, and the Sharqi Peninsula, all updated for the Frostbite 2 engine.

For more on Battlefield 3, check out GameSpot's review.