Nex Playground is everything the Xbox Kinect wanted to be

The year is 2026 and it’s the hottest game in my living room Fruit Ninja. No, I’m not in the middle of an ill-advised mobile game kick. Instead, my family and I have been jumping and cutting flying fruit in our living room using the Nex Playground. It’s a small gaming system built entirely around Kinect-like games. With a camera and onboard vision processing, the $249 Nex Playground can track up to four players as effectively as Microsoft’s old Xbox motion tracker. Simply put, the Kinect dream, along with Nintendo’s Wii, resides in the Nex Playground.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical of the Nex making a dent in the console arena. It’s hard for new companies with no hardware experience to steal any limelight away from entrenched rivals like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. But Nex Playground’s simplicity, intuitive motion tracking and library of kid-friendly titles (including the likes of Peppa Pig again Bluey) made it nice for families. The company says it sold 650,000 units last year, which may not sound like much, but it was enough to beat the beleaguered Xbox last November.

In fact, I’m just glad it gets my kids off the couch. I do my best to limit screen time with them, but as someone with fond memories planted in front of my TV playing endless hours of SNES games, I also leave some space for my kids to explore technology and media on their own. I like the way Minecraft’s the almost limitless creative potential has unleashed my daughter’s imagination, but I also want her to move a lot, especially in these winter months when we can’t easily go outside.

Even though Nex Playground is another screen-based activity, the variety of games to play keeps my kids entertained. again it helps them sweat. The console version of the Fruit Ninja it’s like the VR platform of that game, where you have to stand up and make an effort to swipe your arms. You don’t just drag your fingers across the screen. Go keeper plays the role of soccer goalie, resulting in my kids jumping into our family room to block and catch stray balls. And we all love to have little dance parties too A starthat makes you swing your arms and run away from obstacles, similar to VR titles like this one Hit Saber again Synth Riders.

In addition to those three games, Nex Playground comes with it Party Birdsa collection of mini games, and its spin Whick-a-mole. If you want more games, you have to sign up for Nex Play Pass for $89 a year or $49 for three months. The company also offers a $29 Sports Pack at Target stores, which includes tennis, basketball and bowling games. Beyond those options, however, there is no other way to add new titles to Playground. You can’t buy anything individually, and since the whole platform is digital, there’s no market for cheap used games like you can find consoles.

Nex’s subscription model is arguably Playground’s biggest flaw, especially given the system’s $249 price tag. Instead of being an expensive console that you buy once (like the Xbox), and then occasionally buy new titles, the Playground is an ongoing commitment that always requires your wallet. To the company’s credit, the device has no ads or in-app purchases.

“Ultimately, we’d like to establish that long-term relationship … we want to serve your family consistently with new content, with new updates throughout the year,” said Nex CEO David Lee in an interview with the Engadget Podcast. He noted that the company has added twenty new games to its subscription in the past two years, and 40 game updates in the past year. Similar to Xbox’s Game Pass, the goal is to maintain the value of Nex Play Pass over time.

You could argue that the inflated price of the Nex Play Pass isn’t nearly as bad as the $15 to $30 per child charged by childcare centers. Those God-forsaken places disturb children for hours at a time, and visiting one also comes with the risk of contracting rare childhood diseases. In theory, Nex Playground could be something you turn to whenever you need to release your kids’ restless energy. And if that means parents can get more sleep over the weekend, or just a few minutes alone for a cup of coffee, suddenly $89 a year doesn’t seem so bad.

I’m also impressed with Nex Playground’s hardware and software, both of which are more polished than I would expect from a new hardware company. The device itself is a pale colored plastic box with a camera on the front (and a nice lens cover). You just have to plug it into power and an HDMI port, pop some batteries into the remote (which looks like a Roku remote) and connect to Wi-Fi. It took a few minutes for Playground to update the first time I turned it on, and I had to create a Nex account using my phone.

Once that initial setup phase was over, it took another five minutes to download the first batch of five Playground games over my gigabit connection. That time depends entirely on your internet setup — I’ve seen reports of it taking up to 30 minutes to install core Nex games. I was also able to download the entire Play Pass library of titles in 35 minutes, but it can take several hours on a slow connection. Thankfully, that download happens in the background, so you can play other titles while you wait for new ones to be installed.

Another plus? Once you download the games, you can play them completely offline. That makes it easier to grab the Playground and bring it on vacation, or to a friend’s house, than with other consoles. As long as you have access to a TV input, have power nearby and clear about six feet of space, you can play Playground.

Nex’s long experience in developing motion-tracked games and experiences is a big reason why Playground is so successful. The company previously created Homecourt, an app to track your basketball skills, and Active Arcade, a collection of Playground-like mini-games for iOS devices. Lee admitted that it’s hard to get parents to use their phones for things like Active Arcade. That led him to develop Playground as a closed ecosystem, where the company can build a series of games around the device where it can control all aspects of the hardware.

Now that Nex Playground features games from well-known children’s brands such as Peppa Pigit is clear that Lee’s intuition has paid off. While I have some concerns about the company’s subscription model, Nex has done something rare: It’s developed a simple box that makes it easy for your whole family to jump into games and virtual experiences. You don’t need to set up a clunky console or any extra accessories. Just connect the Nex Playground, and you too can become a virtual hand-cut fruit on your TV in no time.