This $249 Nex Playground Motion Gaming Console Outsold Xbox

ARTICLE – Motion gaming by no means actually went away. It simply misplaced the lounge. Microsoft’s Kinect vanished into obscurity, Nintendo’s Wii gathers mud in closets, and for years households had few choices to get youngsters shifting with out unplugging the console solely. The Nex Playground modifications that calculation.

Price: $249
Where to Buy: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Sam’s Club

The $249 gadget from gaming startup Nex has quietly constructed momentum all through 2025, promoting 650,000 items and beating Xbox in November gross sales in keeping with trade analyst Mat Piscatella. Its enchantment is simplicity: a compact field with a digicam that tracks as much as 4 gamers, no controllers required, no elaborate setup.

For an organization with no prior {hardware} expertise competing towards Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, these numbers characterize a real foothold. Nex isn’t attempting to interchange conventional consoles, but it surely’s carved out house that the massive three have principally deserted since movement controls fell out of trend.

What the Nex Playground Is

The Nex Playground is a devoted gaming system constructed solely round camera-based movement monitoring. Onboard laptop imaginative and prescient processing handles participant detection with out exterior sensors, monitoring physique motion in actual time throughout your lounge. The {hardware} connects to any TV by way of HDMI, attracts energy from a typical outlet, and ships with a easy distant that resembles an elongated Roku distant.

Setup takes minutes slightly than hours. Plug in energy, join HDMI, insert batteries into the distant, and hook up with Wi-Fi. The system downloads its core library of 5 video games in roughly 5 minutes on a quick connection, although customers on slower networks might wait as much as half-hour.

Once downloaded, video games work solely offline, making the system genuinely moveable for holidays or visits to buddies. The solely house requirement is roughly six toes of open ground, which is much less demanding than Kinect’s authentic footprint.

Nex’s background in motion-tracked functions exhibits within the Playground’s execution. The firm beforehand created Homecourt, an app for monitoring basketball expertise, and Active Arcade, a group of movement video games for iOS units. CEO David Lee pivoted to devoted {hardware} after recognizing that almost all mother and father wouldn’t decide to phone-based lively video games. Building a closed ecosystem the place the corporate controls each {hardware} and software program gave Nex the consistency that telephone apps couldn’t ship.

Game Library and Licensing Strategy

The launch lineup interprets acquainted gaming ideas into full-body experiences. Fruit Ninja calls for standing up and swiping your arms via digital fruit slightly than dragging fingers throughout a touchscreen. Go Keeper turns you right into a soccer goalkeeper, requiring jumps and dives to dam incoming balls.

Starri delivers rhythm-based motion just like Beat Saber, with arm swings and impediment dodging set to music. Party Fowl gives a mini-game assortment, and a Whack-a-mole adaptation rounds out the bundled titles. These 5 video games include the {hardware} buy and work with none subscription.

The youngsters’ content material pipeline is the place Nex has made vital inroads. Games that includes Peppa Pig and Bluey have joined the catalog, signaling partnerships with established kids’s leisure manufacturers.

This licensing technique positions the Nex Playground as household leisure slightly than hardcore gaming {hardware}, which is a brilliant alternative given the movement management format and goal demographic. The shift towards branded content material helps mother and father justify the acquisition as a result of they’re shopping for into characters their youngsters already acknowledge and belief.

The deal with family-friendly IP additionally sidesteps the content material score points that conventional consoles face, maintaining every part accessible for youthful gamers with out alienating older relations who wish to take part.

Subscription Model

The 5 bundled video games include the {hardware} buy, however accessing the complete library requires Nex Play Pass. The subscription prices $89 per yr or $49 for 3 months, with no choice to buy particular person video games individually.

A $29 Sports Pack accessible completely at Target shops provides tennis, basketball, and bowling video games. Nex has expanded the Play Pass library constantly since launch, including 20 new video games over the previous two years and delivering 40 recreation updates prior to now yr alone.

CEO David Lee has in contrast the strategy to Xbox Game Pass, framing it as an ongoing content material relationship slightly than a one-time {hardware} buy. Notably, the platform comprises no commercials and no in-app purchases, which retains the expertise clear and targeted on gameplay.

The subscription requirement will frustrate consumers preferring proudly owning video games outright, but it surely does assure a gentle stream of recent content material. Whether that tradeoff works depends upon how usually households use the system and the way rapidly Nex continues including titles value taking part in.

Market Position

The 650,000 items bought in 2025 represents a real foothold within the gaming {hardware} market. Industry analyst Mat Piscatella famous that Nex outsold Xbox in November, a milestone that speaks to each Nex’s progress and Xbox’s ongoing challenges with console gross sales.

That comparability wants context. Xbox {hardware} gross sales have been declining as Microsoft shifts focus to Game Pass and cloud gaming, so beating Xbox in a single month doesn’t essentially imply Nex is competing at Xbox’s scale.

It does imply Nex discovered an viewers prepared to spend $249 on a tool that does one factor properly slightly than attempting to be every part to everybody. The Playground isn’t competing with PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch on graphics or AAA titles, and that’s intentional.

The firm’s prior expertise with Homecourt and Active Arcade gave them perception into what households truly need from movement gaming, which isn’t photorealistic graphics or complicated button mixtures. They need one thing that works instantly, requires minimal setup, and will get youngsters shifting with out feeling like train.

Price: $249
Where to Buy: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Sam’s Club

The actual take a look at will probably be whether or not Nex can maintain momentum past the primary yr. Motion gaming {hardware} has a historical past of sturdy launches adopted by fast drop-offs as soon as the novelty wears skinny, and Nex’s subscription mannequin solely works if households preserve taking part in lengthy sufficient to justify the annual payment.