On Dec 21st, Baidu announced that their metaverse project Xirang is in closed beta, and it will open to everyone on Dec 27th. Baidu will also hold its AI developer conference Create 2021 on the Xirang App before then.
Though only invited users can access the closed beta, an earlier version of the Xirang App is already available for everyone. According to Ma Jie, the Vice President of Baidu, project Xirang is still in version “-6.0” and is far from complete. He is telling the truth, as the current version of Xirang is rough and empty: there are few things to interact with, clipping glitches appear everywhere, someone will be stuck into T-pose for no reason, and voice chat is overflowing with annoying noises.
Ma Jie confirmed that multiple technical issues need to be solved before Xirang meets its target. And some of them are quite challenging. He also clarified that Baidu has no plan to sell virtual items (i.e., virtual lands) in Xirang.