Seamus Blackle is a physicist, game designer, and technology visionary best known as the originator of the Xbox . After studying physics at Tufts University , he began his career in high-energy physics before pivoting to the video game industry. He worked on titles including System Shock and Flight Unlimited . In the late nineties, while an employee at Microsoft , he led the development of a bold new console project. The Xbox revolutionised the video game landscape, introducing hit s...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 110
Keith Burns is an award-winning aviation artist and illustrator. As a student he dreamed of becoming a comic book artist but after his teachers at art college discouraged him from the career path, he dropped out and became a bus driver. Ten years later he received an email inviting him to submit a comic strip to a talent finding project. His submission led to a meeting with Dave Gibbons , co-creator of Watchmen . Gibbons encouraged my guest to pursue his gift, which eventually led to a long-stan...
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 109
Marjolein Robertson is a Scottish comedian, improviser, and storyteller. Born in Lerwick, on the Shetland Isles, she first started performing with Shetland Youth Theatre at the age of 13. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh , she was working as a town planner, saving for a mortgage, when she and her partner decided to move to Amsterdam on a whim. A series of catastrophes followed. Marjolein lost her home and her job, then landed in a Dutch improvisational comedy class, and began st...
Mar 11, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 108
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 story hit the headlines. Currently, he hosts the behind-the-scenes programme, Doctor Who: Unleashed , as...
Mar 04, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 107
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 the world of computer role-playing games. In the years that followed Bioware released a string of bl...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 106
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. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Feb 19, 2025•54 min
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 2007, and blended traditional folk with modern sensibilities. The record garnered critical acclaim an...
Feb 18, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 105
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 for games, specialising in character-driven stories focused on people of colour. My guest has written for ...
Feb 11, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 104
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 , The Dark Crystal , Enola Holmes , and Slow Horses . But it’s his feature film work for ...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 103
Part #2 of a collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2024. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 14, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Enjoy this collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2024. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 07, 2025•1 hr 12 min
A special episode with the winner of the My Perfect Console of the Year award, as voted by the listeners to the show. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 31, 2024•14 min
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? Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 24, 2024•1 hr 25 min
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 a napkin for a friend. He later put the puzzle online, then added another. Two weeks later his now a...
Dec 17, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 102
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 May this year, my guest published Animal Well , a game which he started to work on in his spare tim...
Dec 10, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 101
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 book project. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See...
Dec 05, 2024•36 min
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 became a best-seller, then a series, then, in 2010, a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer ...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 100
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 publications anywhere. In 2020 he left Game Informer following a round of layoffs and joined Electro...
Nov 26, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 99
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 Alberta . After graduating, he was selling televisions when he applied to be a tester at Biowar...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 98
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, and decided to commit her life to the art form. She moved to Los Angeles and began voicing character...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 97
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 Troopers: Battlespace , and, in 2001, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of ...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 96
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 pioneer, he formed a close collaboration with the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet , with whom he worked ...
Oct 29, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 95
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: writing, narrative designing and co-producing Mutazione , the most nominated game in the 2020 IGF awards....
Oct 22, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 94
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 series such as Dead Ringers and The Mighty Boosh . In 2003 he published Join Me , a book about how he a...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 93
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 television, including, among hundreds of others, the Oscar -nominated For Sama , the hit Netflix serie...
Oct 08, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 92
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 machines. In the late seventies he joined Williams where he and a colleague came up with the idea for a ...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 91
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’. It was, however, his adaptations of video games for which he made his name. House of the Dead , Alon...
Sep 24, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 90
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 Murder Simulator ”, a response to a challenge set down by the notorious critic of video games, (and pr...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 89
In this special correspondence edition, host Simon Parkin reads out listeners' correspondence and answers your questions. Hear Simon discuss the recent, headline-making episode with former PlayStation President Chris Deering, listener responses to the controversy, as well as discussion of what term we should use to describe the genre formerly known as 'Metroidvania', Maddy Thorson's grey label platforms, and much, much more. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-consol...
Sep 13, 2024•35 min
My guest today is an American businessman and the former and first president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe , Chris Deering. Raised in Boston, Massachusetts to immigrant parents, my guest had a strict upbringing. Despite the disadvantages he faced, he graduated with distinction with a degree in computer science at Boston College , then studied marketing at Harvard Business School . He first worked for the razor-manufacturer Gillette , rising to the rank of head of worldwide shaving, then ...
Sep 10, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 88
