14 DAY TRIAL // It was quite a surprise for the PC gaming community when Microsoft announced that the third installment in the Fable franchise will be released also on their platform of choice. Even more surprising was Microsoft's initial statement that both versions would launch at the same time on the 26th of October 2010, given the fact that the first Fable game came out for the PC one year after the Xbox version.
Many PC gamers were not too keen on Microsoft's promises and they were right, as the company has confirmed to IGN that the Fable III for the personal computer has been delayed. “The console and PC versions are now on different schedules as we're focusing on building experiences optimized for each platform,” the company said in the statement. “We aren't announcing a ship date for the PC SKU at this time, but expect news soon.”
Whether this happened because the PC version of Fable III really needs some polish before hitting retail or, more probably, because of piracy concerns is not known, at least until Peter Molyneux's next interview. On the other hand, he has declared before that much of the content from the Xbox 360 exclusive Fable II had to be cut because it was very buggy, so it is not so hard to imagine that the development on an ambitious project like Fable III for two platforms may have brought similar challenges to his team.
Fable III is also said to be Microsoft's big return into PC gaming, a signal of bigger things to come. In the past few years it seemed that the developer of Windows, the main operating system that host high profile games, had all but forgotten of this community, focusing on bringing the Xbox 360 in as many homes as possible. Apparently Microsoft may want a piece of the surprisingly profitable pie that PC gaming has become lately because of Steam and other digital distribution services.