Fable 3 to Have Project Natal Compatibility and In-Game Microtransactions

Peter Molyneux’s Fable games have gained a lot of notoriety in the gaming industry not so much for their innovations as their creator’s grand statements about their innovation. Molyneux is a master at hyping his games, but it led to disappointment when it becomes obvious that the Fable games just aren’t as mind-blowing as he promised. That’s why some mildly surprising announcements from him about the upcoming Fable 3 really shouldn’t be that surprising at all.

The first bit of news should be blatantly obvious for anyone who watched Molyneux extol the virtues of Project Natal at Microsoft’s E3 demo of the technology. Molyneux practically gushed about how Natal would change gaming. Now he has announced, to no one’s surprise that Fable 3 will support the motion control of Project Natal.

Molyneux made that announcement at a BAFTA lecture in London recently, but he didn’t give any details about the level of integration, so you can expect to see more speculation about that soon.

The next announcement was not much more surprising, if a little less expected. At the same lecture, Molyneux also revealed his plans to include an “in-game shop” inside the Fable 3 game world where players could make microtransactions without exiting the game to go to the Xbox Live Marketplace. That means players could get DLC without disrupting the continuity of the game and continue on their way. According to The VideoGame Blog, Molyneux said the purchases would include things like special weapons, which would be sold for somewhere between $1-$2.

This isn’t surprising just because microtransactions are becoming such a popular way to make revenue from games. We’re glad to at least see he’s trying to integrate it so it doesn’t slow down the game experience.

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