‘Skyrim’ DLC Release Date For PS3 Finally Revealed: Dragonborn, Dawnguard And Hearthfire Will Launch At Discounted Price Next Month

After months upon months of waiting, the day is finally *almost* here. Disgruntled PS3 players of “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” will be getting every downloadable content package that has launched for the action-RPG game thus far.

Pete Hines, VP of public relations and marketing for Bethesda Softworks, revealed via Twitter that Dragonborn would launch for the PS3 on Feb. 12. This is the only DLC with a firm release date, but Hines confirmed that the other expansions would also launch next month.

“Dragonborn out Feb. 5 for PC,” he posted to Twitter last week. “Also out for PS3 in Feb (date TBA), followed by Hearthfire and Dawnguard (also Feb.) Each 50 percent off first week.”

For some PS3 gamers, this discount comes as somewhat of an apology for the ongoing delays that have been occurring since Dawnguard, the first Skyrim DLC, debuted on the Xbox last spring. In addition, this will hopefully mark an end to the consistently postponed DLC releases on Sony’s video game console.

Avid Skyrim players have been up in arms since the first DLC saw its debut, and Bethesda has since struggled to qualm players’ demands. Hines has become what seems to be the medium between the players and the company, sporadically posting news about the DLC’s development via Twitter over the past several months.

Fans initially speculated that these delays were caused by an exclusive deal with Microsoft, but Hines eventually squashed that rumor by revealing the real reason behind the setbacks.

“This is not a Dawnguard issue,” he posted to Twitter back in October. “This is a DLC on PS3 issue. It affected DG because it was the first one.”

Hines never specified what “PS3 issue” caused the delay, but Sony’s console has a reputation for posing a challenge to developers. Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, even admitted that the PS3 is just plain difficult to develop games for.

“We don’t provide the ‘easy to program for’ console that (developers) want, because ‘easy to program for’ means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, ‘what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half-years?’” Hirai said after the PS3 initially launched back in 2009, according to CNET.

“So it’s a kind of—I wouldn’t say a double-edged sword—but it’s hard to program for,” Hirai continued. “And a lot of people see the negatives of it, but if you flip that around, it means the hardware has a lot to offer.”

While the announcement of DLC arrival on the PS3 platform marks a joyous day for Sony console owners, it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise for those who have been following closely. In December, Bethesda posted to its official blog that Skyrim DLC for the PS3 would launch in early 2013, but didn’t specify when until recently.

“And as noted in Monday’s blog post, we’re hard at work to make this content available early next year on PS3 and PC,” the blog post read.

True to its word, the company also posted that Dragonborn would take priority over the previously released DLCs.

“On PS3 in particular, we’ve turned our attention to Dragonborn, as we thought it was the best content to release first, and we didn’t want folks to wait longer. Once it’s ready to go for everyone, we’ll continue our previous work on Hearthfire and Dawnguard for PS3.”

Bethesda has released three expansions for Skyrim so far: The first one featured a slew of vampire-based quests and was known as Dawnguard, the second brought some new additions such as the ability to build a house or adopt children and was titled Hearthfire, and the most recent Dragonborn DLC brings players back to Morrowind to face off against the first Dragonborn.

It won’t be long before we start hearing rumors about another potential Skyrim DLC, but let’s just hope PS3 players won’t be left in the dark for here on out.