My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

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 Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Then played a ...

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 his way up through various disciplines ...

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 Tennant, who wins a signed co...

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 it further, replacing the Lemm...

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 across multiple generations, inc...

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 Miniseries, the band co-founded by Angi...

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 visible and influential voices in the indust...

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 to craft the entire eight-hour sco...

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. 

Alongside his journalism, he co-wrote ...

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 the Women Who Made the Internet, a wi...

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 Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Sto...

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 Super Mario Bros., The Legend o...

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 confidently navigate the increasingly complex worl...

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 first E.P. with her band Teens in Troub...

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, where he helped reimagine the Deu...

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. Having been selected for the interacti...

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, which he joined in 2001, and more re...

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 languages are the most memorable? A...

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 following with his in-depth reviews, ind...