Sony's home development kit breathes its last

Sony have sold their last Yaroze in the UK according to weekly trade paper MCV. The Net Yaroze is the black development kit which enables users to program PlayStation games together with a PC. When the Yaroze originally launched, it temporarily allayed fears that old school, 'back bedroom' programming had died a death with the demise of the Amiga. However, in reality, few people could afford a PC and £500 for a Yaroze. And although aimed at amateur coders, Yaroze was hardly a beginner's piece of kit and it didn't produce many decent games anyway - certainly not much that couldn't be knocked up on an Amiga 1200. According to figures quoted in MCV, over 2,000 Yarozes were sold in the UK and some 10,000 worldwide. Existing users will still receive support from the Net Yaroze development program.