UPDATE: This has been revealed to be fake.
In recent years, both Hollywood and the video game industry have tried to stick with tried and true formulas in an attempt to cash in on what is popular without much risk of failure. This is all due to slowing economies and recent recessions, forcing studios working on both mediums to avoid risking blowing the bank on a failed new intellectual property. It’s due to this that the announcement of sequels is rarely a surprising thing at the video game industry’s big bang event, E3. It’s become expected and standard practice, which annoys some and makes others very happy.
Based on recent rumors and newly discovered domain registrations, Microsoft may please one of those camps at this week’s event with the (potential) announcements of a few new sequels. A domain listing was found for something called Fable: The Journey, which could be the fourth game in the series or some other project related to the popular RPG games. No other details were mentioned, but it was discovered along with some Kinect title listings, including Dance Central 2 and Kinect Sports Season Two.
This has sparked intrigue about a potential Fable game for the motion-sensing device, especially since Peter Molyneux and his team at Lionhead Studios have worked on past promotional projects for the device.
All three franchises have sold very well in the past, so it won’t be a surprise if Microsoft goes back to the well for sequels. Hopefully sequels won’t be the only big announcements from their camp this year. The company is lacking new exclusives for 2011, so the hope is that they will announce a new crop of XBOX only titles for us to become excited about.
One other domain listing was discovered, for a previously mentioned project: Kinect Fun Labs. It is rumored to be a working title for another project known as Kinect Me. Its domain was discovered late last month, along with a crop of Fusion titled listings.
We’ll have to wait and see, however. Microsoft’s E3 press conference will be live on the internet and on certain television networks, tomorrow morning.