My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

Steffan Powell is a reporter, television and radio presenter. Born in the Amman Valley in South Wales he joined the BBC while in his twenties, soon working his way up to the position of senior broadcast journalist for Radio One’s Newsbeat . In 2021 he became BBC News’ first ever Gaming and Culture Correspondent , appearing across the broadcasters’ news programmes whenever a video game-related stor...

Greg Zeschuk is the co-founder of Bioware . While a medical student at the University of Alberta he told his future wife that, if he could, he’d make video games for a living. After he graduated, the dream came true when, in 1995, he and two friends founded Bioware in his basement. The following year the trio released Shattered Steel and, two years after that, Baldur’s Gate , which revolutionised...

In this special episode, five My Perfect Console supporters share the games they would like to put on their ideal, fictional games machine, and the reasons behind their choices. If you would like to share your console with the My Perfect Console audience, head to  this post  for more details. Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfe...

Basia Bulat is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. Born in Toronto into a family of Polish immigrants, music was always a close presence in the family home: her mother taught piano and guitar. After graduating with a degree in English literature from the University of Western Ontario , she began to pursue music as her own career path. Her debut album, Oh, My Darling was released by Rough Trade in 2...

Adanna Nedd is a narrative designer and writer for video games. Born in the Chesapeake Bay State of Maryland, she studied Information Technology & English at Penn State University as a Millennium Scholar. While at Penn State, she started multiple research projects investigating how players represent themselves in video games through their choice of skins. After graduating, she began writing fo...

Daniel Pemberton is an Academy Award-nominated English composer and songwriter. In 1994, at the age of 16, he recorded an album in his bedroom using a multitrack cassette recorder. It caught the attention of the music producer Pete Namlook, who released it on his label, leading to a flurry of soundtrack commissions. In the years that followed, my guest wrote music for TV shows including Peep Show...

Part #2 of a collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2024. 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 Survey 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enjoy this collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2024. 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 Survey 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A special episode with the winner of the My Perfect Console of the Year award, 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 Survey 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has 2024 been a good year for video games? Host  Simon Parkin  and comedian  Glenn Moore  each pick their five favourites of the year. Will any of their choices overlap? Will the game in the top spot start with a vowel? 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 guest today is G. T. Karber, the innovative crime writer and creator of the Murdle series of puzzle books. The son of a judge and a civil rights attorney, he studied mathematics and English literature at the University of Arkansas , then took a Masters at the USC School of Cinematic Arts . It was while he was working on a project in a coffee shop that he scribbled down a crime-themed puzzle on...

Billy Basso is an American creator of video games. Born in Chicago, he studied film, then earned his masters in Computer Science at DePaul University . After a stint working as a video editor, he moved into game development, first making educational games for schools in Chicago, and later at NetherRealm Studios , where he worked on smartphone versions of Mortal Kombat  and Injustice . In...

In this special correspondence edition, Simon reads out your correspondence and answers your questions. Which ten games have been picked in the first 100 episodes more than any others? What are the best Christmas-themed video games? What are the best video game sound effects of all time? Who are the video game industry's true founding fathers (or mothers)? And a special teaser for Simon's next boo...

Jordan Mechner is an American author, game designer, graphic novelist and screenwriter. While a student at Yale University he designed and programmed the martial arts game Karateka . To create the animations in the game he pioneered a rotoscoping process to capture Super 8 film footage of his friends and family members. My guest further developed this technique for his next game. Prince of Persia...

Andy Macnamars is the former editor-in-chief of  Game Informer.  He joined the bi-monthly magazine for its launch in 1991 as an editorial assistant. Within eighteen months he had been promoted to editor’s seat, which he the occupied for 25 years, growing the magazine’s readership from around 60,000 subscribers to, at its height, eight million, making it one of the most widely read public...

Corrine and John are the director and creative director of  Dragon Age: The Veilguard . Corinne Busche majored in digital animation at the  University of Utah . In 2006 she joined the studio now known as  EA Saltlake , working through the ranks to become a Design Director for  The Sims  series. John Epler studied English language and literature at the  University of A...

My guest today is the American voice-actor and activist Sarah Elmaleh. As a student at Wesleyan University she performed in a variety of theatrical productions and radio plays, spending a portion of her studies at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. After graduating she moved to Brooklyn, New York, and was working as a stage actor when she fell in with the city's game development scene,...

My guest today is the founder and director of ZeniMax Online Studio, Matt Firor. After studying history at George Washington University , he co-founded the developer Interesting Systems Inc ., where he created a MUD-style text adventure titled Darkness Falls . In 1995 he co-founded Mythic Entertainment , where he produced pioneering online games such as Godzilla Online , Aliens Online , Starship T...

My guest today is a French film director and pioneer in the world of digital imaging. Born in Paris, he studied architecture and medicine at university before joining the film industry. He co-founded  Duran Duboi , a postproduction house that created visual effects for music videos by artists including  Prince ,  Madonna ,  Lenny Kravitz , and  Boy George . As a VFX pionee...

My guest today is Hannah Nicklin, a British writer and narrative designer for video games. After studying Drama at Loughborough University , and Playwriting at the University of Birmingham , she returned to Loughborough for a doctorate in interactive design as anti-capitalist practice. After several years working as a poet, theatre-maker, and academic, in 2019 she moved into games full time: writi...

My guest today is the award-winning humourist, writer, and presenter Danny Wallace. Born in Dundee, Scotland, he published his first professional video game review at the age of thirteen while conducting work experience for Sega Power , a magazine that subsequently offered him a job. At 22, after graduating from The University of Westminster , he became a BBC comedy producer at, working on hit ser...

My guest today is Nainita Desai, the British composer for film, television and video games. Born and raised in London by her Indian parents, she earned a degree in mathematics, then studied sound design at the National Film and Television School . She started her career as a sound designer on the films Little Buddha , Lessons of Darkness and Death Machine , before branching into composition for te...

My guest today is the American video game designer and programmer Eugene Jarvis. Born in California, he studied computer science at Berkeley , where, in the basement of the physics laboratory, he played the early video game Spacewar . After graduating he worked for Hewlitt Packard , but quit after three days to join Atari , where he began programming for some of the first computerised pinball mach...

My guest today is the German filmmaker Uwe Boll. Born in Wermelskirchen he decided he wanted to direct films at the age of ten, after seeing Marlon Brando star in Mutiny on the Bounty . It wasn’t until he was in his mid-thirties, however, that he directed his first major motion picture, Blackwoods , a psychological thriller that a critic for the New York Times described as ‘smart and diabolical’....

My guest today is the American video game artist and designer, Derek Yu. Born in Pasadena, California in the early eighties, he started mapping out games on graph paper when he was still a child. After graduating college with a degree in computer science, he moved to San Francisco to work as a freelance illustrator. In 2007 he developed a satirical run-and-gun freeware game titled “ I’m O.K – A Mu...