Second Life to Get Localized Client for Japan
Second Life resident Nobody Fugazi sends along the news that a localized client for Second Life is in the works for Japanese-speakers, and possibly for Korea as well, according to this article in Digital Bulletin. It’s long been known that Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world, was interested in client localization, but this is the first public acknowledgment I’ve seen that a client is actually in the works. It sounds like the company is putting significant resources behind its Asia “rollout,” which really amounts to marketing push in the region, since it seems highly unlikely (i.e., practically unthinkable) that a separate service would be launched for Asian customers. By last summer, Second Life users were already running about 50/50 between U.S. customers and those from other countries, but the vast majority have been English speakers. Is the true internationalization of Second Life at hand? Or as Nobody asks, “Will this mean I can buy Yen through LindeX?”
Feeds
Hi Mark.
A quick hello from Paris from a regular reader of yours.
Just to let you know I am currently in the final stages of translating the French localization with old-timer French resident Nick Rhodes.
Hopefully, we’ll have it ready and running in the coming weeks.
A bientôt…
FYI - Most of the text in the client user interface is contained in XML files in the Second Life/skins/ directory. Any user who cares to do the work can translate SL into the language of their choice. Hopefully we can come up with a system for distributing/installing these translations that is easier than manually copying the files. :-)
Cheers,
James
This is very cool. Here in Spain when I do a presentation on SL one of the first questions is always, yes but when will an interface in Spanish be available? Language is a barrier in Spain and most latin americal world.
I thought LL had a Spanish localization program ongoing.
If this is not the case, should we develop the Spanish interface? James?
G.
Is second life “Lineage2″ ?…
A magazine in Japan has quite strange special report recently.
In “COURRiER Japon”, number of 2007/02/01, has a special report for “Second Life”(SL), the Linden Lab’s virtual world.
However, thi…