One very well-regarded leaker has spilled the beans on the recent delay of the next Fable game, because they believe it’s directly tied to a PlayStation 5 port of the upcoming title.

In case you haven’t heard, Fable, Microsoft’s upcoming reboot/sequel, has been delayed to 2026.

“I just want to start with, really excited about progress… Really excited about where Playground are. We previously announced the date for Fable as 2025. We are actually going to give Fable more time, and it’s going to ship in 2026 now,” Craig Duncan, head of Xbox Game Studios, revealed on the official Xbox Podcast.

“While I know that’s not maybe the news people want to hear, what I want to assure people of is that it’s definitely worth the wait. I have unequivocal confidence in the Playground team.”

Now most of us assumed that the game simply needed a little longer in the oven. Delays can happen for any myriad of reason, but development simply being further behind than expected is usually the most common.

However, NateTheHate (possibly the most famous video game news leaker of all time at this point) seems to think there’s a different reason entirely.

“If I had to speculate as to why Fable was delayed,” Nate stated in a forum post on Resetera, “it’s to allow some extra time for polish & to make the PS5 version a Day One release alongside Xbox/PC because the PS5 version was always slated for 2026.”

Over on the r/PS5 subreddit, users shared their opinions about the leak.

“Fable was the only reason I was keeping my Series X,” commented user Slayer_of_Monsters. “Now I’ll sell it and just use my PS5 Pro. A new TV is closer than I thought now.”

“Xbox game gets delayed for the PS5 release is wild lol,” replied user SpyroManiac36.

Honestly, I think Fable coming to PS5 is a given at this point (as Microsoft are porting basically everything else to the system anyway), but I’m not entirely sure that being the reason for the delay makes a lot of sense.

I just don’t see how the PS5 release being delayed would impact the release of the Xbox version in any way. If it comes out on PS5 later, wouldn’t that just increase the likelihood of people buying the Xbox version anyway?

Either way, expect some more news on this one before the end of the year. Like I said, I think it’s definitely coming to PS5 eventually – it’s just a matter of when, not if, at this point.