Why did Net Yaroze fail?

I don't mean to spam the forums, but I have a burning question that some of you can answer. Why do YOU think Sony's Net Yaroze failed? Was it because it was too expensive? Too difficult to purchase? The system was too limited (unlike the dev kits)? The tools sucked?

I ask this because I read that the next Nintendo Revolution may give home programmers ability to make their own games/code. I think if Nintendo does this they will have a better chance of surviving. I think one of the reasons Xbox has succeeded was because there is a large amount of people who are somehow creating games for it. Look at PSP! I wasn't going to get one but now with all these emu's and other things being released, I am changing my mind.

I can't understand why Yaroze failed. All I know is I never really knew much about it or where to get one when it was first released.

 

Net Yaroze not fail.
you can see Net Yaroze for PSX, PS2Linux for ps2. sony ready support people to go start programming

 

But they should have made Yaroze available through retail channels. Then they stopped production...why??? I don't know anything about PS2 Linux, I never see it at any stores.

 

sony stop Yaroze on 2002(hey ps2 ready rls).
PS2Linux ready rls 3 years old..., they just stop store when PSTWO rls....

 

I heard it was an internal struggle at Sony that caused problems for the Yaroze.

 

...Yaroze got pissed off when the dongle was hacked.

 

Really? The little access card got sussed out. I can use a regular debug station as a 'Yaroze' but only if I use the access card. So, if they hacked these, anyone caould use any chipped PSX or debug PSX.

I don't think it failed at all to be honest. It wasn't available in stores for the same reason PS2 Linux isn't in stores which is because any old muppet would go and buy it and then think "Oh crap, I don't know how to program in C or use Linux, can I have my money back mister?"

They made the right choice by having it mail order only and it hasn't failed it all IMHO. Many people used the Yaroze to produce small PlayStation games and then got jobs in the games industry.

WHY do you think it failed Benedict Arnold? I agree it was costly but then again you were getting a special black multi region console (retail still cost about £170-180 odd in 97), and 2 controllers AND access to a lot of the development files etc which real dev companies paid thousands of pounds for.

Actually my Yaroze was only £349, part of a special introductory offer by SCEE, which I think was a very good price. £549 is fairly steep though....

 

People aren't creating games, they are porting over emulators written for the PC :smt009
(disregard me, I'm a generalising, moaning, git)

 

IMO because it was expensive, shit and badly advertised. I used to buy the official PlayStation magazine and it only mentioned purchase instructions once and it was £500 or something IIRC. Oh yeah and don't forget they crippled it (in comparison to a real dev) and you had to own a PC as well (not cheap and slow as hell back then too).

 

Well, it's not *that* shit, it allowed you to send packets to the GPU so you could theoretically do everything graphically that a normal game could, I've seen some pretty cool stuff being made.

 

I hardly saw any advertising for it (in fact, I didn't see any). It seems they stopped manufacturing them and supporting them in the US region fairly quickly. I can't speak for the Japanese or European community. If it was a success, then why didn't we see different versions like we did on the grey playstations?

 

I picked one up when they were released in the US. I quickly got sick of the way you had to download code to the thing and switched over to the PAR method, but still used the yaroze compiler. It was disappointing to see barely anything going on in the yaroze newsgroups. No one ever really posted anything, so there just wasn't much support. The docs that came with the system left so much out and were vague, leaving most people confused as to how the PSX actually worked.

I'm hoping that Sony will support deving on the PSP.

 

Depends on your location.

In the US both the Net Yaroze and PS2 Linux were released by SCEA and then promptly dropped. No support was offered, there was virtually nil discussion on the message boards and no promotion. SCEA just didn't care to see either of the two survive. They were merely released at the behest of SCEI.

Now in Europe, you saw things such as Yaroze coding competitions, demos being released on the OPM demo discs, etc. so that people knew what the Yaroze was. In the US if you asked an average gamer with a PlayStation if they knew what a Net Yaroze was, you'd get a blank stare.

-hl718

 

Good luck on that.

Sony has always hated giving other people access to its hardware. The company is pretty fanatical about maintaining control and will do whatever it takes to curb homebrew. The recent firmware updates are a perfect indication of that.

Microsoft on the other hand has pretty much taken a "hands-off" approach to homebrew so long as it doesn't cross the realm into piracy. Do you really think that Microsoft doesn't know that the XDK software hasn't been pirated all to hell?

There are plenty of projects that can only be compiled with Microsoft kit, such as the Xbox Media Center, and are technically illegal as they were created with pirated software yet the big bad in Redmond turns a blind eye because the software is free and does not encourage piracy.

If any of the big three are homebrew friendly, it is Microsoft.

All of this homebrew talk makes me wish that the Dreamcast hadn't been pirated all to hell. Sega had some awesome homebrew plans for that -- including a scaled down devkit that worked with a retail DC instead of a standard tower -- but the rampant piracy killed that system before its time. As a result, the homebrew kit got shelved along with all other projects. After all, why bother working on a system that you're no longer supporting?

-hl718

 

I don't think the yaroze can be classed as a failure anywhere in the world, as it was targetted to such a small market. In the same way you wouldn't see visual studio in a games shop, You don't see a yaroze in a game shop - Moreso since the target audience for visual studio, despite still being small, is bigger than yaroze.
Also, in recent times (>=16bit I'm thinking) there has been no similar product, so how can you judge success or failure, when these are relative terms and there is nothing to relate it to?

 

this is just a good way to get deeper market penetration. i've always tought that sony did something similar by creating a such easy moddable console when they entered first in the console war....

 

Thats because it didn't fail!

...In the U.K (which is all I can speak for) it did rather well in an 'underground' sort of way

...Sure you had to have a shitload of cash to buy it in the first place and granted it wasn't advertised, but those that were likely to be interested in it certainly latched onto it.

...Who know's one day I may even release one of my Yaroze Dev'd titles if I can be arsed

 

In no way did it fail, I think you are viewing it on the same level as a retail PS2.

Masters programs are still supported by Sony at 5+ university’s across the UK, all using PS2 Linux kits, you can even still buy them from my University (providing you are a student that is).

Also PS2 dev got a huge kick up the arse when the Linux kits were released, a company ACTUALLY releasing documentation of how to use it’s proprietary hardware – amazing, just amazing.

 

Just out of interest mate, what 5 unis are these?

 

what did you create with the devkit? i'm curious