The Lionhead King
Peter Molyneux on Fable, Jonathan Ross and parrots.
It's interesting that only the die-hard, slightly fanatical...
...On-the-verge-of-insane-people actually enjoyed the latter three. But other than that, there aren't many films that have survived one, two, three, four instalments...
There is that of course. And Caddyshack 1, 2, 3, and 4, let's not forget that high point of dramatic entertainment. But they tend to go downhill. It's going to be interesting - is there going to be a Tom Clancy 56 and a Halo 99?
Whatever happens in the future of Fable, I don't want you to think you know exactly what features are going to be in there. Don't think about this as an RPG franchise - think about it as the world of Albion.
There's a niche for Fable as there's humour in there and there's a Britishness and I think we'll keep that side of it. But whether it's more action or RPG or MMO or some new genre - that's what we have to do.
I think it's not good enough just to say, "OK, we'll do another Fable." Because in the end you're just driving yourself off the cliff. At some point, someone's going to turn round and say, "You know, I'm a bit bored by all this." We don't want that to happen.
If I was talking about Fable 3 - I would hope there would be three enormously big things about the Fable 3 that would surprise and shock you. Not that I am talking about Fable 3. Hypothetically speaking.
No. Good guess. Parrot? Maybe. Not really.
Yes!
[Long pause] Umm... Well, that's so clearly a no comment. That's blatantly... Absolutely no comment.
Yes, that's true. If you'd caught me at the end of the day, I probably would have spilled some more beans.
What I would say - and this is not saying anything - is it's a bloody exciting time to be in this industry. Every foundation stone you can think of is being thrown away. I'm not talking about any particular manufacturer, but you have the advent of Live, changes to how you play games, what you hold, how games are distributed, whether a games console is just a box you buy and then that's it... All of those things are completely changing at the moment.
You can see us in five years' time, sitting here - if I haven't died of some horrendous old person's disease - we're going to be showing stuff we can't even imagine now.
Peter Molyneux is head of Lionhead Studios. The company's current project, Fable 14: Jonathan Ross and his Magical Parrot, is in development for a console Microsoft is currently designing in space and will be released via brain chips next century.