Time for another round of “hoax, or not a hoax?” with a Fallout trademark filing. Today’s effort is a 5 November filing at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for Fallout’s famous “Pip Boy” device. You can see the filing in the image below.
Turns out this one, unlike the highly dubious and debunked German filing for Fallout: Shadow of Boston, is real. Bethesda’s official twitter account (by way of Bethesda media man Pete Hines) confirmed that the Pip Boy filing is one of theirs.
Re: https://t.co/tabTO1bfFt RT @DCDeacon not a hoax. our filing. just protecting our trademark. also helps in dealing with infringement stuff
— Bethesda (@bethesda) November 10, 2014
However, as you can see, they’ve also pretty heavily downplayed it as just a routine renewal of a trademark. Not a big flashing clue that Fallout 4 is about to be announced.
These recent confirmations and debunkings do mark a change of policy from Bethesda, who previously would stick religiously to the “we don’t comment on rumour and speculation” line. It’s actually quite helpful that they now bother to confirm or deny rumours.
People are understandably clamouring for information regarding the next entry in the Fallout series, since it’s been six years since the release of Fallout 3 and four since Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas. But if Pete Hines is to be believed, people shouldn’t expect news of a Bethesda Game Studios title in the near future. In 2 November, he told an eager twitter user that they shouldn’t expect info “any time soon.”
@Albus961 you shouldn't expect info anytime soon
— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) November 2, 2014
