Battlefield 3 Server Rental Now Available for Xbox 360

Taking inspiration from the wonderful world of PC gaming, Battlefield 3€™s latest patch enables Xbox 360 players to rent their own servers and play the game how they want. The patch, weighing in heftily at a little over 1GB, comes several days later than the Playstation release but offers all the same features. Anyone who has played Battlefield, Team Fortress, or other online shooters for the PC will be familiar with this process, but it€™s a pretty new addition to console gaming. The rental times are tiered and range from one through to ninety days, costing anything between £1.19 and £47.99 for the full ninety. The more cynical among us will see this as EA€™s way of grabbing yet more money from the customer post-purchase. They€™d be right, but that doesn€™t mean that there isn€™t fun to be had with this feature. Firstly, having a private server now means you can customise everything from the map cycle down to the UI elements. You can prioritise friends, so they€™ll always have a space on your server. You can kick everyone else out and just invite a buddy in to farm achievements. Greatest of all, however, is that rented and named servers allow for a potential community; once you find a good server that works for you, you€™re likely to return, as will other players, and this is a welcome side of PC gaming that has been missing from consoles for too long. You can follow all of our Battlefield 3 coverage here.