Is Fable coming to the PC?

Lionhead supremo Peter Molyneux has hinted that Fable, the ambitious Xbox RPG in development at Lionhead satellite studio Big Blue Box, could be on its way to the PC. When asked by GamePro in a recent interview whether Fable will remain Xbox exclusive, Molyneux had replied that "we are thinking of possibly one other format, and it's not a console [smiles]. That's all I can say; you should be able to figure out what that is. But for the moment it's an Xbox exclusive." Obviously the implication is that a PC version is under consideration. Unless he meant Infinium's elusive Phantom - surely a fitting target for Lionhead's output?

But then yesterday, a preview of Fable published at Boomtown seemed to contradict the Black & White creator. According to that report, Craig Davison, Microsoft's product manager for the game, has described a PC version as too time-consuming a prospect to be realistic, thanks to the detail level in the game and the sheer variety of hardware configurations out there.

It's impossible to say who's barking up the wrong tree here, or, given Molyneux's penchant for saying odd things to the press, whether the tree in question even exists, but whatever the case, we're still excited about Fable. Call us idiots, but the prospect of an organic RPG, in which you quite literally grow your own character from the age of 15 or 16 and guide him through a heroic life in whatever cast you please, is so delicious it has us salivating. As does the magnificent eye candy. We're a little sceptical about some of the claims, and we're wary that it's probably not going anywhere near Xbox until the latter stages of 2004, but we'll certainly be keeping an eye firmly out for it when we trundle off to X03 later this year...