Battlefield 3 Premium announced, extends PlayStation 3 DLC exclusivity to two weeks

Battlefield 3's "Premium" membership got officially revealed this morning by EA (via an exclusive Reuters piece), and it confirmed many of the details we already knew about the soon-to-be-launched service. "Premium" costs $50 one time, not to mention a variety of other in-game weapons and dog tags, as well as a handful of "enhanced" Battlelog features (such as resetting stats). The piece doesn't mention getting access to the game's five announced map packs, but that seems like an odd omission considering the $50 asking price. It does note, via EA vp Patrick Soderlund, that Premium offers, "savings since access to content included in the membership package would cost $25 more if it was purchased separately."

Additionally, the membership gives users two weeks of advanced access to the variety of unreleased DLC packs – except this perk only applies if you're a PlayStation 3 customer. Much like Call of Duty's adherence to an exclusivity window on DLC for Xbox 360, Battlefield 3 is locked to a similar tryst with Sony's PlayStation 3. This means that users who pay for the Premium service on either Xbox 360 or PC won't get that same level of early access, which is ... pretty bizarre to us.

The piece doesn't make clear when the service launches, but the perviously leaked memo and yesterday's leaked trailer indicated it would launch as soon as today. The piece also notes that Battlefield 3 has thus far moved 15 million units. Not too shabby! We expect to hear even more about Premium during EA's press conference this afternoon.

Update: Further details of Battlefield 3 Premium have since been officially revealed by EA during today's press conference. Check out all the news right here.