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Comment by rgbrgb | Hacker News Reader

> Last year I got my hands on a rare, black PlayStation 1. This is called a Net Yaroze and is a special console that can play homebrew games as well as ordinary PSX titles. It was part of a special Sony project to get hobbyists and students into the games industry.

I wonder what the post-mortem on this initiative was like. Seems like they didn't pursue it in future consoles but dang it would be pretty cool if there was a hobbyist section of the PS5 store that anyone could put small games in.

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Sony released a linux kit for PS2 [1], which was conceptually similar to Yaroze, but I think PS2 Linux didn't have apis for all of the PS2 hardware. The PS3 initially shipped with an OtherOS option[2], which was later removed, but is also conceptually similar again without access to all the hardware.

I haven't heard of anything similar with the PS4 or PS5; I'm guessing Sony is unlikely to provide similar widely available options in the future, but who knows. They did PR expanded access for "indie developers", but I don't know what the process looks like to get that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

At least some of these efforts were supposedly related to Sony's attempts at getting various Playstation models classified as computers instead of video game consoles for import tariff or tax reasons.

While the tariff classification plot never seems to have worked out, Sony did also around the same time apparently succeed in creating a perception of the PS2 as being so dangerously fast as to needing export controls as a munition(!): https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-pixel-9-pro-xl-vs-samsu...

With the PS3, both attempts eventually succeeded, but in a way that backfired at Sony gloriously: The US Navy actually did end up using the PS3 as a supercomputer! https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomput...

The only problem: They were selling the console as a loss leader, making money only via games and game licenses. Once somebody had finally taken them up on their "it's a computer, not just a game console!", they were very quick to remove the "Other OS" boot capability in a firmware retroactively.

Microsoft offers a an Xbox "developer mode" that lets users run their own software on their consoles.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-apps/devk...

it's unfortunately quite gimped, basically UWP-only and running with the system capped to around 1/4th of the typical performance, so it's not really that useful.

if the EU hadn't specifically exempted games consoles, it would be legally incompliant with the gatekeeping requirements.

The Net Yaroze had similar limitations. You couldn't access the disc drive, so all of your game's data had to live inside your executable binary, which needed to fit in RAM. It was hobbyist hardware, not intended to compete with actual dev kits, which were ISA cards that contained real PlayStation hardware, which you would slot into your PC.

> Seems like they didn't pursue it in future consoles

I don't think this is entirely true.

Sure, there was nothing like the Net Yaroze, but the PS2 came with Yabasic[1] on the demo disk and had a Linux distro[2], and the PS3 also had a Unix support[3].

While some of this might have been for tax benefits, I still think it fits in the spirit of Net Yaroze.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yabasic#PlayStation_2

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

> Seems like they didn't pursue it in future consoles

FWIW, they did:

PS2 had an official linux distro, which was intended to be a sequel

PS3 had an "other os" mode, which allowed you to run your own, unsigned OS. This was eventually removed in a firmware update, due to piracy.

Ironically the removal brought more piracy.

That's not really what the cause of it was, tbh.

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