It’s no secret that Microsoft has been sorely lacking in the exclusives department. The company has struggled to make an impact on this generation and is relying on stellar customer service to compensate. With the next generation of consoles on the horizon, Microsoft will be looking to rectify this issue. One of the ways they could do this is to bring back key franchises of the past and give them a proper sequel. The newly discovered Fable and Perfect Dark placeholders found on Twitter suggest this is exactly what they plan to do.
Originally brought to light by Tom Warren of The Verge, in a tweet he explains that a Microsoft employee is following one of the accounts, and the other has a registered Microsoft email address.
I’m not sure who discovered the @fable and @PerfectDarkGame placeholders, but a Microsoft Xbox employee is following one, and the other is registered to a Microsoft email address 👀 pic.twitter.com/MagqUbPiZf
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) June 27, 2020
Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg has since responded to these rumours. He states that the accounts have been “inactive for years” and are used to secure social media for their IP. However, there are a couple of inconsistencies in Greenberg’s statement. He claims the accounts have been “inactive for years”, but these accounts were clearly created in March and June of 2020. Also, if these are simply for protecting IP, wouldn’t people have also found placeholder accounts for other long-forgotten Microsoft properties? Greenberg’s statement is full of holes and isn’t particularly convincing anybody.
There’s only one definitive way to be sure, and that’s to wait for Microsoft’s upcoming event. Whilst there’s no date, the event will take place in July and will show off a number of next-gen titles for the Xbox Series X, including Halo Infinite. We may also see some surprise announcements, hopefully giving us an explanation for these Fable and Perfect Dark placeholders.
