Eidos and their publishing chums, Warner Bros. Interactive, have announced The Joker as a playable character, exclusively for the Playstation 3 version of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Holy gaming platform inequalities!

The smiley psycho leads a cast of Gotham City’s most nefarious ne’er do wells as they attempt to take over the Asylum in Eidos’ shadowy and surprisingly brutal action game. It looks like we’re in for a right old treat story-wise too, with a script crafted by five-time Emmy Award winner and Lost: Season One scribe, Paul Dini.

Yup, the June release date can’t come around quickly enough. Particularly for Playstation 3 owners who, from launch, will be able to download The Joker for FREE from the Playstation Network and play as him in the game’s many Challenge Maps thereafter. There’s no indication whether he’ll have any unique abilities or extra weapons, but that mighty blood-splattered hand-cannon he’s sporting looks like it’ll get the job done nicely enough.

All good for the PS3, then. But what about exclusive Batman badguys for the Xbox 360 and PC editions of the game? Sadly there’s no word on such things at the moment. However, knowing the way that PR and Marketing depts like to operate, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if new playable characters are announced over the coming weeks. Fingers crossed, anyway…