Microsoft apologises for getting your "hopes up" for new Perfect Dark and Fable games

News
By published

"These accounts have been inactive for years," insists Xbox exec

(Image credit: Rare, Xbox)

Microsoft's Xbox marketing boss, Aaron Greenberg, has played down the significance of the recent registration of two new Twitter accounts – @Fable and @PerfectDarkGame.

Journalist Tom Warren tweeted news of the two new accounts, reporting that both were only recently registered - the Fable one in March, and the Perfect Dark one only this month – and noting that "a Microsoft Xbox employee is following one, and the other is registered to a Microsoft email address".

Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg responded to the tweet, however, stating: "I know everyone is hungry for news, but sorry to get your hopes up. These accounts have been inactive for years, it’s standard practice to secure social handles for our IP."

This only poured more fuel on speculative fires, as clearly neither account has been "inactive for years". And whilst the owner of @PerfectDarkGame has since unlocked the account and said they "created this account after hearing about the @fable one", adding they were "sorry to disappoint everyone [as they are] just a normal guy who got the @", from most of the comments to the tweets… well, it appears few believe them.

Perfect Dark released 20 – 20! – years ago now. In the GamesRadar+ Perfect Dark remaster review we gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, stating: "Perfect Dark is a conspicuously aged game; many years older it seems, than Halo, and somehow even older than the less ambitious but more solid GoldenEye from four years earlier. But if you were there at the time, if you queued with us at the game store and claimed your pre-order, if you remember that summer’s multiplayer bloodbaths at a framerate you never realised was bad, if you can hum the Carrington Institute’s pause music without even thinking - you simply have to get hold of this revival of Perfect Dark, no matter how sadly imperfect it is today."

There's a lot to get excited about in gaming this year. Here are the upcoming games of 2020 we really just can't wait for.

Vikki Blake
Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.