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Hipihi enters open beta, somewhat international

"A Friday post on an English-language forum announced the jump, but the company's announcement that the world would move from the "Genesis" phase, which drew over 40,000 users, to the "Dawn of Society" came today" (Virtual Worlds News)

Yesterday Hipihi, the Chinese answer to Second Life, entered open beta with a somewhat international downloadable client (pc-only). As Virtual Worlds News presumes: “It sounds like, based on an interview with UgoTrade, that the goal is to mix English and Chinese names, encouraging interaction between HiPiHi’s diverse audience.” However, the english launch seems to come premature, with several key user interfaces still in Mandarin (the revamped Mandarin/English-version seems to have scraped an older, already existing english version, dating back a few months). As a commenter on virtual Worlds News describes: “Unfortunately, the PDF user guides giving English-language translations of the Mandarin are now difficult to use, since they refer to a UI that is now defunct.”

According to China Web 2.0 Review, development of Hipihi started in 2005, with a slightly bit different direction: Back then, Hipihi was divided into a Hipihi World and (a somewhat Cyworld-comparable) Hipihi Home. Development then focused on the SecondLife-like Hipihi World, eventually partnering with Intel and IBM. The Chinese start-up has a funding of US$ 3 million under the belt from Japanese investor NGI Group. 

While Techcrunch accuses Hipihi of cloning Second Life, it will be interesting to see wether Hipihi will suffer from the same problems troubling the original.

BTW, at the meantime, release of PlayStation Home has been pushed back yet again. 

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