MS closing down Lionhead and shoving Fable away like a worthless IP makes no sense.

Funny you say that when it clearly is better than any Sony game out this gen.

Microsoft's interest in clearly not in games, it is elsewhere. That would be fine if they weren't in the GAMING industry. Couple that with one of the most complacent fanboy audiences ever and we have a pathetic excuse for a gaming company. Hopefully a better competitor comes along to replace them.

Yeah, I don't get it. It's like they are trying to fail, to sabotage their own shit. A new and cool looking Fable could probably have moved consoles. MS really have a lot of missed opportunities.

I'm not much a fan of Fable, personally but I think the series would have really helped in not only giving the machine more exclusives within different genres but also more recognition. The Fable franchise was very popular.

Perhaps Microsoft will find a new team to work on Fable games.

Fable could be a monster ip for Microsoft if they took care of it. I suppose three iterations followed by a Kinect game, an xbla flop and a cancelled project for xone means they passed the ip around the board room , used it and abused it and cast it to the weeds with the rest of the garbage.

Sorry, the game wasn't perfect but few are. It deserved better.

@TheEroica: I still understand that the core trilogy sold very well. I would have thought they would try and get a fourth title out.

@jumpaction: in my opinion, fable was one of the few franchises that got sequels pretty close to right. Each was a different time/place in Albion history, each shook up the place if the hero, each felt connected but also unique to it's chapter.

Not to mention, there isn't a legend of Zelda walking through the door at Microsoft. Fable was their franchise that serves their fantasy, adventure fans... A huge draw when done well. I could hire a 16 year old kid to make better decisions with that franchise than the suits at Ms.

Ask yourself if you want a new gears, Forza, halo or fable right now.... Pretty easy choice . Ms has nothing in the genre for fans.

@TheEroica: I think it would do them well to think about a fourth installment and give it to a new team.

@jumpaction: hell yeah... Much more than we need a 6th gears and a 9th halo or whatever... Cmon guys, enough.

@lifelessablaze:

Alas, poor Fable. I knew it well....?

Granted I only played Fable 1 and 2. It's still sad to see such a unique idea go to waste.

@TheEroica: Granted, you know, it's not as though Microsoft haven't tried putting out new IPs living in different worlds like Sunset Overdrive and ReCore, though their successes seemed to vary among communities.

There is also Sea of Thieves and Ori and the Blind Forest, both living in different worlds to Halo, Gears of War or Forza.

I think reviving Fable, a well established franchise that people are familiar with that exists within a fantasy world would give the 'Xbox World' a little more variety in terms of settings though. Again, not really into Fable personally but I think it would draw in an audience.

Edit: Context aside, it would be nice to even have more roleplaying games dedicated to Xbox One. Both Sony and Nintendo have their own roleplaying games but I can't think of one on Xbox One...

@i_p_daily: Flagged for editing my posts.

it's a shame really.. Fable was one of the few [exclusive] franchises I enjoyed on the XB systems. The problem was Peter M was Entirely too ambitious with every iteration. And they all fell short of those goals, but still were great games.

Not to worry, part of the massive team at Mighty Rare has handed off SoT to a smaller team for completion and is already hard at work creating the highly ambitious Fable, Peter M. always talked about making but never quite came to fruition.. Rare can make it happen baby!! :D

Wow as a friend of mine likes to say "Nostalgia is a hell of a drug".

Let's not forget there was a lot of tedious stuff in these games like having to chop wood, and let's not pretend the fighting was anything to write home about.

Fable really shined in it's witty and funny story telling. It was never a graphic marvel by any means when you compare it to Dragon Age or Witcher 2 (contemporaries of it's day) But it was actually quite entertaining because of the writing.

I think it would be really hard to recreate that but if anyone could it would be Rare. They are from the area and have been known to write some pretty funny games as well.

I can't say I really actually want a new Fable. Let it go start something new in the spirit of, but better.

@lifelessablaze: It's par for the course. They shelved/sold off MechWarrior and Crimson Skies - both were decent selling IPs.

Ok, now you just sound stupid. You must have been on auto-pilot when you typed that crap lmao

Yep he's crazy. The first Fable wasn't bad but it didn't come close to delivering on the hype it had. The sequels were trash. And most of Fable 3's sales were bundled and at huge discounts. If it was really profitable they wouldn't have dumped the franchise.

@NathanDrakeSwag: I'm not taking anything away from Fable. I liked it and what it tried to do when I was younger. But for OP to say that it's better than Sony's entire lineup this gen that's just bait, bro. It makes no sense lol

About the only distinguishable thing with Fable was it's intrinsic British humor.

@NathanDrakeSwag: oh poor swaggy, it seems i hurt your feelings :(

Would you like some tissues for your issues?

Honestly Microsoft shutting down Lionhead wasn't something that really bothered me. I only played Fable 2 and 3 and while I did enjoy them they just never seemed to be all that big and great of a franchise. Also while I thought that Peter was a generally likeable guy with some fanciful ideas his reach always seemed to exceed his grasp. While I would be interested in seeing a new Fable game it's not something that I am clamouring for and seeing Lionhead closed isn't really something that I think makes no sense.

Compare these numbers to total systems sold.

A Fable or RPGish game is sorely needed on Xbox every 3 years or so. Scalebound not happening really messed it up too.

Interesting interactions meaning farting on NPCs? Sorry, but this series was never that great. The 1st was decent, but the 2nd onward just plain sucked.

You know that they just released fable fortune to early access and it's pretty dam good. it's like a cross between magic and hearthstone. I like it a lot better then hearthstone. not sure if it's as good as magic yet, but they did get rid of some annoying magic shit like being mana fucked by the AI.

Because MS doesnt believe in exclusives

I enjoyed Fable at it's time but boy has the ship sailed a very very long way. I'd say Molynuex had a very bad habit of exaggerating.

I just don't think standards of the current gen especially in the open world, RPG, sandbox genre would be very forgiving for another Fable title. It be far easier to develop a new ip all together with inspiration from the good bits of Fable.

But as an Exclusive I'm not sure which studio would pull that off for microsoft.

P.S The irony in my reply however is that perhaps I shouldn't have replied to this forum post and would have been better to let it too sail a very very long way away into the dark abyss of gamespots forum graveyard.

MS has biases towards shooters (e.g. Gears of War 4/5, Halo 5/6, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2) and racers (e.g. Forza Motorsport 7 and Horizon 3).

MS believes exclusives for Windows 10 based devices.

@ronvalencia: Yeah that is great and all. But what if you only have money for one console, you don't have a very powerful PC (most people not on Gamespot), and see that one console offers many more exclusive titles and the same 3rd party support as its competition? This generation happens. 63 million to 34 million in sales from the last estimates that I can recall. Platform exclusives matter. They are kind of a big deal if sales are any indicator.

If you can't afford both, then the PC games are irrelevant when comparing the two consoles. Not to mention Sony is inflating their games list with shit like Life of black tiger.

@waahahah: It still does not invalidate my point. Sony has a better 1st party catalog that has bearing on the sales of the consoles. The sales are a reflection of this.

It did invalidate your point about about subtly trying to dismiss pc/xone games.

@waahahah: No, let me spell it out for you. If you are a potential buyer and look at the catalogs of the systems the PS4 have more games that are exclusive. I never tried to dismiss the Xbone/PC library. Did I say it was bad? Again, the PS4 objectively has more games than the Xbone. That is why the PS4 has more sales. People do research and see that then buy the PS4 in higher numbers in response.

RPG and Xbox don't work together.

Xboxi a very 'Murica system and so focus on what 'Murica like : Shooting, racing and sandbox

Your doing it again, unless when you say exclusives you mean games excluding one or more platforms (including xbox/pc games in your comparison of ps4 vs xbox one).

Also that correlation isn't quite true, ps4 had more sales before it had a lead in games.

@waahahah: Ok Mr. technical, the PS4 has more exclusive and more total games between the two consoles. That is a fact. The PC was not part of discussion after you rebutted my 1st post. I only included it because Ron did his Ron thing and added a graph. The beginning of the console sales are easily explained by watching comparison videos of the two running the same games with the PS4 running 95% better multiplats. Neither had a great starting library. That and most people didn't like the Kinect and the 499.99 price tag on the Xbone. But as time went on the libraries have grown with the PS4 having the advantage in exclusives and raw numbers of games leading to more sales over the Xbox. Not hard to understand.

Good fable sucks and lionhead has a crappy track record

You still can't clarify what you meant by exclusives. Which you used again, and again. Your trying to frame the XBOX first party out of the comparison

Also if your including games like life of black tiger... Ps4's strongest game advantage is Japanese support, otherwise its not a significant difference and power/price and social groups adopted ps4 are probably larger contributing factors there.

It seems like Microsoft has been lacking in the exclusive lineup in general. Which is sad because they have some IPs that have made really great games (like, I dunno, all of the RARE original IPs like Banjo Kazooie and Conker). I'm not really a huge fan of Fable, but I played 2 and 3 a good bit with my cousin and they were pretty fun, albeit basic for an RPG. So far though, out of the big three console developers, Xbox easily has the weakest library of exclusives.

@waahahah: You cannot be this special kind of stupid. Exclusives are 1st party games, studios in Sonys employment......You know the very thing listed in the title of the thread (Lionhead).....But I will entertain your feigned stupidity. Bloodborne, Jak and Daxter, Nioh, Last Guardian, Knack, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Detroit Become Human. These are titles only on PS4 and no other platform.

Nioh / Bloodborne are not sony's first party. So we know your not talking about 1st party exclusives.

Also your also mentioning games on no other platform. Again your implying games like Sea of Thieves don't count for xbox even though its a first party game that will not be on ps4.

@waahahah: They are exclusive to the PS4 platform. I also mention a few that were 1st party only. I'll concede they are not 1st party on Nioh and Bloodborne. But they are exclusive to the PS4 and were closely worked on with Sony. They can only be found on PS4. Sea of Theives is also on PC last I checked so not console exclusive. It is coming to PC as well.

As stated above the better selection of games is why the PS4 has sold better than the Xbone at this point in the generation. What other reason could you come up with?

I Nioh/Bloodborne are exclusive, You listed them as 1st party and you were wrong.

And here your finally showing your stupid. You ARE dismissing xbox/pc games not on ps4 when comparing ps4/xbox, even when you even mentioned they might only be able to afford 1. Your comparison is biased dumb and unrealistic.

What other reason?

Cheaper, better multiplats, higher adoption rate in social groups, M$ having a bad stigma, better Japanese support... Alot of games generally sell to a small fraction of the user base so games usually I don't see as being synonymous with wide sales.

The fable series had potential but it never went anywhere. Sad to see it go like this.

meh, who cares, I want me some Black and White 3. They could turn that into a VR game no problem with the whole "Gesture" system for spells, picking up worshippers, building mats, your pet, etc.

Perfect VR+controller game

somehow I think black and white isn't a M$ property entirely.

During year 2013, both XBO and PS4 started from nearly ground zero software titles with PS4 has superior hardware with lower cost.