My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

Please enjoy this collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2025.  Featuring: Tonda Ros, Kat Abugazaleh, Nathan Brown, Adanna Nedd, Joel Morris, Basia Bulat, Andy Davidson, Bennett Foddy, Rami Ismail, Brian Gibson, Greg Jenner, Chris Plante, Tomm Hulett, Harvey Smith, Mark Cerny, Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Lorien Testard, and Alexander O. Smith. Become a My...

Please enjoy this collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2025.  Featuring: Tonda Ros, Kat Abugazaleh, Nathan Brown, Adanna Nedd, Joel Morris, Basia Bulat, Andy Davidson, Bennett Foddy, Rami Ismail, Brian Gibson, Greg Jenner, Chris Plante, Tomm Hulett, Harvey Smith, Mark Cerny, Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Lorien Testard, and Alexander O. Smith. Become a My...

A special episode with the winner of the My Perfect Console of the Year award, crowning the most popular console designed by a guest on the show this year, as voted by the listeners to the show. Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Su...

The year is winding down, inboxes are quietening (lol), time is about to lose all meaning, and the year’s great cultural arguments are finally ready to be settled. Perfect timing, then, for  My Perfect Console: Game of the Year 2025 . In this special episode, host  Simon Parkin  is joined by comedian  Glenn Moore  to build two consoles that capture what this year  fel...

Harvey Smith is a game designer and writer whose work has helped shape some of the most atmospheric and influential games of the last two decades. After serving in the U.S. Air Force he began his career in video games as a tester on the formative System Shock . Then he joined Ion Storm worked as lead designer on Deus Ex , one of the most influential immersive sims of the era. In 2008 he became a p...

Alex Seropian is a pioneering American video game developer whose work helped shape some of the most iconic series in the medium. After studying mathematics at the University of Chicago , he co-founded Bungie in 1991, first developing Operation Desert Storm then titles such as Pathways Into Darkness , Marathon , and Myth . In 2001, he and his team released Halo: Combat Evolved , a landmark first-p...

Mark Cerny is an American programmer, and game designer whose career has shaped not only how we play, but the systems we play on. A San Francisco native, he dropped out of UC Berkeley at 17 after receiving an invitation to join Atari . At 18 he designed the arcade hit  Marble Madness . He then moved to Japan to work with Sega , for whom he founded the Sega Technical Institute , developers of...

Brandon Adler is an American game director and producer whose career has been defined by his work on some of  Obsidian Entertainment ’s most acclaimed role-playing games. After serving in Iraq with the  U.S. Air Force , my guest studied Game Art & Design at  The Art Institute of California .  He joined Obsidian as a tester for  Neverwinter Nights 2  before working...

In this special correspondence edition, Simon reads out your letters and answers your questions. Why are guests so often caught out when asked to name their console? What is the best moment in a video game? What might a My Perfect Console game jam look like? And can Simon settle a dispute between a father and his kids in the car? All this and much more. And congratulations to letter-writer Spencer...

My guest today is a British game designer whose ingenuity and persistence turned a bedroom project into one of the most iconic multiplayer series in video games. In 1991, he took the characters from the popular  Amiga  game  Lemmings  and placed them in a game of his own, a simulation of artillery fire.  At school, the game proved popular among his friends, so he worked on...

Shuhei Yoshida is former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios , and one of the most beloved figures in the video games industry. After graduating from Kyoto University with a degree in economics, he joined Sony in 1986 to coordinate the company’s PC business. Then, as one of the early members of the PlayStation project, he helped oversee the development of landmark titles...

Danny Abbasi is a musician best known as the drummer for  Miniseries , the genre-blurring band whose dreamy, cinematic soundscapes have been turning heads in the indie music scene. After graduating from the  University of Glasgow  with a degree in English Literature, he moved to China where he worked as a professional musician.  In 2023, having returned to the UK, he joined Min...

Rami is a developer, speaker, and global ambassador for indie games. As the co-founder of  Vlambeer,  he helped create a string of critically acclaimed titles—including  Super Crate Box ,  Ridiculous Fishing ,  Luftrausers , and  Nuclear Throne —that helped define a new era of independent game development.  Beyond his work on games, he’s become one of the most vi...

Lorien Testard is a French musician and composer. He started his career as a guitar teacher, composing instrumental tracks for imaginary video games in his spare time. He began to upload them to his Soundcloud, and soon had a collection of more than fifty pieces online. His life changed when he shared one of the tracks in an indie game forum. A video game director saw the post and invited my guest...

Chris Plante is a journalist, editor, and one of the sharpest voices working in video game media. After studying at  New York University , he worked as freelance writer for outlets including  The Guardian ,  Vulture , and  Edge  before, in 2012, co-founding  Polygon , a website blending coverage of pop culture, longform storytelling, and thoughtful games criticism.&nb...

Claire L. Evans. is an American musician, writer, and artist whose career has spanned music, technology, and cultural criticism. Best known as the co-founder and lead singer of the indie pop group  YACHT,  she has helped steer the group into bold experiments at the intersection of sound, performance, and digital art.  She’s also the author of  Broad Band: The Untold Story of th...

Alexander O. Smith is a translator, writer, and creative producer whose work has brought some of Japan’s most acclaimed stories to audiences around the world. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in classical Japanese Literature, he went on to become one of the most respected voices in literary and video game translation.  He is best known for his celebrated work on  Fi...

Charlie Rosen is a Grammy award-winning musician, composer, and arranger whose work sits at the intersection of jazz, pop, and video game nostalgia. As the founder and leader of  The 8-bit Big Band , a 35-piece jazz-pops orchestra, he had transformed classic video game soundtracks into virtuosic symphonic showstoppers.  Under his direction, the ensemble has reimagined themes from  S...

Andy Robertson is a veteran journalist, editor, and entrepreneur who has spent his career exploring how video games can bring people together. After graduating from  Brunel University  with a degree in Computer Science, he worked as a freelance games critic for the  BBC  before launching Family Gamer TV , a YouTube channel designed to help parents and caregivers confidentl...

Lizzie Killian is the lead vocalist and guitarist of  Teens in Trouble , an indie rock band known for its anthemic melodies, sharp lyrics, and emotionally charged hooks. Before taking to the stage, she started her career as a writer covering games, then moved into communications, collaborating with titans of the industry such  Capcom ,  EA , and  Riot . In 2022 she released her...

Jonathan Jacques-Belletête is a French-Canadian creative director and artist whose work has helped shape some of the most stylish and thought-provoking contemporary video games. After graduating from Dawson College in Montreal, he worked as a commercial illustrator before joining Ubisoft as an artist on the Far Cry , Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed series. In 2007 he joined Eidos Montreal, w...

My guest today is an American visual artist whose work is redefining how we think about mystery, architecture, and imagination in interactive storytelling. In 2013 he founded Dogubomb , a Los Angeles-based independent Film and Game Studio making music videos, films, and commercials for clients such as Magic the Gathering and Netflix . In 2016 my guest started work on a video game of his own. Havin...

Brian Gibson is a musician, artist, and game designer best known for blurring the lines between sound, movement, and chaos. As the bassist for the legendary noise-rock duo Lightning Bolt , he’s released seven studio albums and played countless ferocious, high-velocity live shows. But he’s also spent much of his life working on video games, first as an artist for the music-game developer Harmonix ,...

In this special correspondence edition, Simon reads out your letters and answers your questions.  Why has  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time  never made it onto a Perfect Console? Where have in-person gaming communities gone, and can they be revived? What happened to educational games after the days of  Oregon Trail  and  Carmen Sandiego ?  Which made-up game...

Ralph Panebianco is an Australian video game reviewer and YouTube creator known for his sharp insights, no-nonsense delivery, and deep love of the medium. His reviews have been watched more than three hundred million times, and since 2015 his channel, Skill-Up , has become one of the most popular destinations for game criticism, both in Australia and around the world. He has built a loyal followin...