In a down year for console sales, a startup’s family-focused game system, Nex Playground, quietly found a way to grow.

For over two decades, the console war has been fought almost exclusively between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Back in November, industry analysts had to do a double-take when newcomer Nex Playground captured 14% of U.S. console unit sales during Black Friday week. By the end of 2025, Nex had sold more than 650,000 units, over four times its 2024 total.

What Is It?

Nex Playground is a small TV console with a wide-angle camera that tracks body motion. Think of it as the 2025 version of Wii and Kinect: largely it supports similar play but with simpler and cheaper hardware. It ships with a remote control, but it’s played with movement only. No traditional controllers are required. And first and foremost, it’s designed as a "kid-safe" gaming device, serving family-friendly active games that you play by moving your body.

Nex Playground is targeted at families and kids aged five and up. The game catalog is dominated by content obviously targeted at children mixed with the occasional sports, music, and fitness titles. The platform supports gameplay up to four players, who are all simultaneously tracked by the camera. Just to give a few examples: Fruit Ninja is exactly like it is on mobile, except you slice the fruit by swinging your arms; Starri is Nex’s take on Beat Saber gameplay; and Bluey: Bust-a-Move is a collection of five minigames each inspired by a Bluey episode.

*The Keepy Uppy minigame in Bluey: Bust-A-Move needs you to jump to keep balloons aflight. Source: Nex*

The box sells for $249 at retail, with an $89 annual subscription to unlock all content on the platform, including licensed favorites from Barbie to Peppa Pig, among others. At a $249 price point and with an estimated 60% of buyers opting into the $89 annual subscription, Nex likely generated over $180 million in retail revenue during 2025. (The ballpark estimate does not take into account occasional price promotions.)

Less than 1 million units and $180 million in revenue is not nothing, but it’s also not truly threatening Sony or Nintendo any time soon. What makes Nex Playground interesting is how it entered a mature hardware category. The last time a brand-new console maker truly broke into the mainstream console market was Microsoft with Xbox in 2001. Ouya tried this in 2013 and failed, as did Valve’s first Steam Machine experiment (We wrote about the upcoming 2nd gen Steam Machine in November). Perhaps the closest parallel outside traditional living room consoles is Meta Quest, which has sold over 20 million units across generations.

Origins of Nex

Although the Playground came seemingly out of nowhere, the company behind it, Nex, has been around since 2017. Nex is a venture-funded startup founded by ex-Apple execs, spearheaded by co-founder and CEO David Lee.

Nex’s early thesis centered on building computer vision software related to physical activity. The company’s first serious product was HomeCourt, an AI-powered basketball training app for mobile devices that launched in 2018. HomeCourt uses a smartphone camera to track shots and help players improve. The pandemic in 2020 further boosted HomeCourt’s success, as people stuck at home started using its interactive drills not just for serious training but to just play the games for fun. Nex then went on to build Active Arcade, a mobile app offering a variety of motion-tracking minigames from dancing to obstacle avoidance.

The team at Nex soon realized that the camera games they built worked specifically well when users paired their device with the TV in the living room. The opportunity to move to the big screen arrived when UK broadcaster Sky partnered with Nex. Sky was developing a smart TV camera accessory (Sky Live) and invited Nex to bring its Active Arcade games onto its television platform.

After the Sky partnership ran its course, Lee couldn’t find another company willing to take the next step. Thus, the team boldly decided to build their own hardware.

The Unexpected Distribution Unlocks

In the 1990s, “casual games” were Deer Hunter-style PC hits that were sold at Walmart. They were scorned by serious gamers but ended up wildly successful through their mass retail placement, impulse-friendly pricing, and audiences outside the hobbyist core. Nintendo of America, too, famously leaned on a heavy retail presence to dominate the U.S. market.

Nex seems to have repeated that playbook, whether intentionally or not. First, its retail demos look genuinely fun in a way that’s refreshing in the era of TikToks and Twitch; and its price is half what a Switch 2 or PS5 costs.

Second, the console taps into a very modern parenting tension: the desire to get kids off their smartphones and physically active. Unlike most game consoles, the value proposition centers on parental peace of mind, physical activity for kids, and what could best be described as benign screen time.

Finally, the cherry on top is how Nex compensates for its unestablished brand: licensing deals with big-name IPs like Bluey, Peppa Pig, and Sesame Street. Instantly recognizable kids’ brands and characters lend their legitimacy to Nex and act as trust shortcuts for cautious parents.

What’s Next for Nex

Nex Playground hasn’t even released outside North America, so the obvious growth trajectory for 2026 is international expansion, with Europe and the UK coming up next. If anything, 2025 looks more like a proof of demand than a ceiling.

That said, Nex Playground has definitely proven it can move hardware, but it’s not enough to sustain a high-quality business. Motion platforms tend to fade once the novelty wears off, as anyone with a dusty Kinect in their attic can attest.

Nex now faces the challenge of retention, which typically hinges on two things: a consistent flow of new, meaningful content, and experiences that build daily or weekly habits. Trickling content while managing cost is a tough balance, especially since Nex relies heavily on its own first-party content. Its tightly controlled Game Pass-like platform is part of the parent-friendly appeal, but it also makes it harder to attract third-party developers the way PlayStation or Switch can.

To solve the retention challenge, Nex might need to go beyond just more party games. Fitness is an obvious path. Habit-forming apps like Duolingo work because they deliver value daily, right within the app. Mobile fitness apps are already thriving, but they often live outside the living room and compete with many other daily distractions. Nex has an opportunity to bring personal training back to the living room. Wii Fit proved this type of gameplay works and remains one of the top-selling console games to date.

However, Wii Fit was not a live service product. It wound down because Nintendo started to focus on the next platform, not because the game failed. With the subscription business model securing long-tail revenue, Nex might just have what it takes to build the next iteration of home fitness within its platform. The friction is lower than it was for Wii: Nex hardware is simpler (and cheaper!) than Wii was, and consumers are used to paying for subscriptions. The open question is whether Nex can successfully age its audience up or whether each household is effectively on a multi-year timer.

To sustain momentum, Nex will need to hit both sides: regular and meaningful new content and experiences that form habits. But its breakout year in 2025 is already an important reminder that there’s more to the games business than just fighting for core gamers. Sometimes success comes from rediscovering a play pattern others left behind. Wii and Kinect didn’t fail because motion gaming didn’t work. They were shelved because the big console makers were busy chasing AAA games at $70 price tags. Back then, the subscription model hadn’t broken through, and casual players didn’t buy enough games to justify continued investment.

Most importantly, innovation often isn’t about new ideas. It comes from revisiting and refining old ones. Perhaps there are more ideas-in-hibernation that could resurface as compelling new hardware, whether it is rhythm peripherals (Guitar Hero/Rock Band), toys-to-life (Skylanders), or light-gun style play (Duck Hunt). Regardless, it’s impressive what Nex has achieved so far, and we look forward to seeing where David and team take the business next.

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