My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

My guest today is a Scottish crime writer. Born into a working-class family in Fife, she studied English at St Hilda’s College Oxford , where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school. She first worked as a journalist, then a dramatist and, in 1987, published her first novel, Report for Murder . Since then, my guest has released dozens of books, many of which have been...

My guest today is an American neuroscientist and writer. Born in New York, he earned his Ph. D. in neuroscience from Stanford University in 2014, researching  Toxoplasma gondii , the single-celled feline parasite that infects mouse brains and may––or may not––mess with their fear of cats. As well as studying ancient genetics – specifically conducting tests on Egyptian cat mummies –– my guest...

My guest today is a Japanese video-game director, producer, and executive officer of Square-Enix . Born in 1966 in Fussa City in the suburbs of Tokyo, he studied filmmaking at Nihon University. After graduating, he was working at an animation studio when he first played Final Fantasy on the Famicom, and immediately saw the dramatic potential of the video game medium. Despite having no technical sk...

My guest today is Senior Vice-President of Blizzard Entertainment and General Manager of the Diablo video game series. After attending the University of Ottawa for Computer Science, my guest joined Microsoft as a Microsoft Consultant, before he moved to the company’s games division to work titles including Microsoft Train Simulator , then the Xbox version of Counter-Strike . In 2005 he joined Epic...

My guests today are co-authors of the techno-thriller novel Prophet . Helen Macdonald is an English writer, naturalist, and an affiliated research scholar at the University of Cambridge. Their 2014 book “ H is for Hawk ” tells the true story of a year spent training a northern goshawk while grieving. The book won, among many other things, the Samuel Johnson Prize for literature. Sin Blaché is an A...

My guest today is an English broadcaster, writer, television presenter and stand-up comedian. Born in Slough, he began working as a comic in the early nineties, soon landing a gig as co-host of Channel 4’s The 11 O’clock Show , the satirical comedy programme that launched the careers of Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais. A slew of high-profile TV and radio presenting gigs followed, including for...

My guest today is a British author and screenwriter for film and video games. Born in London, he began his career as a writer for the games magazine Commodore User , then joined the team that founded PC Gamer , of which he later became editor-in-chief. In 2010, my guest found success in Hollywood as the writer of The Book of Eli , a post-apocalyptic neo-Western film starring Denzel Washington. In...

Another selection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console's amazing line-up of guests from 2023. Cast in Order of Appearance Henk Rogers Dylan Cuthbert Charles Cecil Jörg Tittel Ellie Gibson Danny Pudi Joseph Mackertich Josh Wardle Dan Vecchitto Tarn Adams Kelsey Lewin Stella Wisdom Tetsuya Mizuguchi Nolan Bushnell Thanks for listening. Back soon with Year Two. Become a My Perfect C...

It's been a thrilling first year for My Perfect Console. Here are some of our favourite clips from 2023. Cast in Order of Appearance Dara Ó Briain Heather Ann Campbell Pierre Novelli Ashly Burch Jennifer Hale Dominic Armato Phil Wang Jason Schreier Lucas Pope Meghan Jayanth Peter Molyneux Ronan Farrow Naomi Alderman Mike Rose Susan Calman Josh Scherr Marie Le Conte Tom Bissell Become a My Perfect...

A special episode announcing the winner of the My Perfect Console of the Year (2023) Tournament. It's time. Fifty-two consoles have now been whittled down to two final machines. It's an all-North American final, as the U.S.A.'s Heather Anne-Campbell takes on Canada's Phil Fish. Both machines are spectacular, potential best-sellers: Heather Anne-Campbell's "The Only Play".  Tetris.  Stree...

My guest today is an American scientist, entrepreneur, and a founding father of the video game industry. Born in 1943, he grew up in Utah, in a Mormon family, before leaving to study engineering and business at Utah State University. While a student he played Spacewar!, one of the earliest digital games designed for the PDP-1 computer. After graduation he joined an electronics company, and there m...

My guest today is an American writer and narrative designer for video games. After graduating from the USC School of Cinematic Arts with an MFA in Animation, he worked as an animator in Hollywood, contributing to an early version of Shrek at DreamWorks, Dinosaur at Disney, and to the music video Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers . In 2001 my guest joined the video game studio Naughty Do...

My guest today is a Scottish comedian, writer, television presenter, narrator, and Twitch streamer. It was during his final year studying law at the University of Edinburgh, the city in which he grew up, that my guest first tried stand-up comedy. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that year he reached the final of the Chortle Student Comedian of the Year , taking second place to Joe Lycett. After be...

My guest today is founder and director of the independent game publisher No More Robots . After graduating from the University of Manchester with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics, he became editor-in-chief of IndieGames.com . From there he worked as UK editor of the North American video game industry website Gamasutra ––today known as Gamedeveloper.com . After a brief stint working in...

My guest today is a New York Times-bestselling author and journalist. After graduating from NYU with a degree in writing, he worked as a freelance journalist covering video games for Wired magazine, Joystiq, Edge , Paste , and others. In 2012 he joined the staff of Kotaku , the video game website run, at that time, by Gawker . There he made a name for himself as a tenacious reporter, particularly...

My guest today is a Canadian cartoonist and creator of one of the best-loved graphic novels of the 2000s. Born in London, Canada, he joined the Film Studies programme at the University of Western Ontario, but dropped out and moved to Toronto, where he became involved in the city’s comics scene. His first graphic novel, Lost at Sea , was published in 2003. The following year, he published Scott Pil...

My guest today is an award-winning novelist, journalist, writer of games, and presenter of radio programmes. She grew up in London, studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, then received an MA in creative writing at the UEA . Her first novel, Disobedience , was released in 2006 and later adapted into a feature film starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams. In 2012 she co-cr...

My guest today is an award-winning writer and narrative designer for video games. As a child she split her time between Bangalore, London, and Saudi Arabia before settling in the UK to study English Literature at University. After a stint commissioning games for the BBC , she wrote the script for 2014’s BAFTA-nominated narrative adventure game, 80 Days , then contributed to the hit indie titles Su...

My guest today is the American designer of two of the most highly regarded experimental games yet made. He grew up in Virginia, where his interest in hobbyist robotics led him to study mechanical engineering at Virginia State University. At that time he started designing mods for Quake , which eventually led to a job at Naughty Dog where he worked on the first two games in the Uncharted series. In...

My guest today is the former Director of Communications for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe . After graduating from the University of Exeter , he joined Dennis Publishing where he worked as deputy editor of Your Sinclair , before becoming the games correspondent for News International’s Today newspaper. In 1992 he left journalism for the world of PR, assuming the role of Head of European PR for...

My guest today is a stand-up comedian, writer, radio host and podcaster. Born in South Africa, his family then moved to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. He studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic languages at Cambridge University , where he became vice-president of the Footlights comedy society. In 2014 The Guardian newspaper described his debut show at the Edinburgh Festival as marking the “dawn o...

My guest today is a is a Canadian American actor for video games, television and film. Born in Labrador in Canada, she soon moved to Alabama in the United States, where, as a teenager, she began working as a commercial voice over artist for radio. After graduating from Alabama School of Fine Arts, she took on voice roles to fund her dream of becoming a musician. Soon, however, the acting took over...

My guest today is an award-winning creator and writer of comic books. Born into a Staffordshire working-class family, he was a student of Applied Biology at Bath University when he started contributing to the prominent computer games magazine Amiga Power . Upon graduation, my guest joined the staff of PC Gamer , then left the magazine to go freelance in 2003. The following year he published a high...

My guest today is a British-Ghanaian writer and advocate for inclusion and diversity in the video game industry. Having graduated from the University of Westminster with a degree in creative writing with English literature, she founded Melanin Gamers , a support community for people of colour who play video games, or who want to join the game industry but feel unsure that there is a place for them...

My guest today is a Canadian video game designer and director. After graduating from the University of British Columbia with an MFA in creative writing, he joined Ubisoft Montreal where he co-wrote the script for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell . In 2005 he directed a sequel to that game, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory , and three years later released the oppressive and acclaimed sandbox shooter, Far Cry...