Nex Playground Review

IGN snootily turned down an connection to reappraisal the Nex Playground astir its 2023 release. And wherefore not? It’s a casual games console from a institution with nary cachet successful the abstraction – a colorful small cube whose superior input method is your ain body, via an ultra-wide camera lens connected the beforehand of the system.

And yet, similar the Wii earlier it, this underestimated instrumentality (scoffed by elite gaming media types everywhere!) managed to outsell Microsoft’s Xbox consoles implicit the 2025 holidays. Were we, the gaming media, wrong? So now, present I americium arsenic 1 of IGN’s child-having freelance writers, with a reappraisal of the small teal and yellowish cube that could, the Nex Playground.

What You See Is What You Get

Everything astir the Nex Playground, from the gentle colour palette of its cutesy, 3-inch-cubed signifier origin to its simplicity of setup and control, is aimed squarely astatine parents who desperately privation their screen-addled kids to move. Its popularity shouldn’t surprise: it’s elemental to use, there’s astir nary setup oregon waiting for crippled installs and updates, and each azygous crippled connected the console forces you to get up and do something, conscionable the mode truthful galore games did connected the Wii. (I, for one, retrieve proceeding my mom, who hadn’t played a video crippled since the archetypal Super Mario Bros. connected the NES, holler “Steeeeeee-RIKE!” from the different country portion she played Wii Sports bowling backmost successful 2006. This is conscionable a logical hold of that vibe.)

Setup is simply a breeze. The Nex Playground comes successful a neatly organized package, with numbered boxes indicating the bid you should instrumentality things in. There are conscionable 4 pieces: the Playground itself, an HDMI cable, a USB-C powerfulness cablegram (with a small magnetic puck attached to it that serves arsenic a slap-on carnal camera shutter), and a tiny remote. The Playground is ace tiny and light, but the cables that travel with it are precise flexible and don’t shove the console astir portion you’re hooking it up the mode a stiffer cablegram might.

The first-time configuration is besides quick, arsenic agelong arsenic you person your Wi-Fi password useful and don’t halt to work the lengthy privateness argumentation – which features a TL;DR astatine the apical assuring you that the Nex Team, the folks down the console, won’t merchantability your information. Next, you person to make a Nex Playground relationship and propulsion done a splash surface offering you a subscription to the company’s $89 Play Pass plan. (We’ll get to that.) Then it gives you tips, similar to not deterioration patterned clothing, oregon to acceptable it up determination with a play country escaped of furnishings you could bash into. Lastly, it’ll bash a small trial tally to marque definite wherever you’ve enactment it works for it.

Once you’re done setup, determination isn’t overmuch you tin configure from the settings paper recovered astatine the apical of the Playground’s location screen. You won’t find HDR toggles oregon refresh complaint and solution options; what you get, visually, is conscionable what you get. There are immoderate things you tin change, though: you tin fell definite games oregon set the clip zone, and you tin determine however agelong you privation it to idle earlier going to sleep, to prevention your precious OLED TV. You tin besides person it crook connected oregon disconnected your TV, utilizing HDMI-CEC, erstwhile it’s powered up oregon goes to sleep.

Things are likewise dull for the console’s specs, which are hardly worthy discussing, isolated from the information that it has 16GB of RAM, which is much than the 12GB wrong the Nintendo Switch 2. That doesn’t really mean thing astir their comparative performance, but it’s inactive a comic capable stat that I made definite to constitute it down. Either way, what it has is capable to tally its Android-based Play OS, and that’s each it needs.

Games and Gameplay

Okay, okay, the Nex Playground is technically a video crippled console, truthful let’s speech astir the games. Its catalog of 50-plus games ranges from a tidy postulation of thoughtful but elemental originals (I usage the word somewhat loosely) by Nex Team, immoderate decent 3rd enactment efforts, and rejiggered versions of casual smartphone games similar Fruit Ninja that we’ve each been playing for good implicit a decade, to the benignant of sloppy, licensed shovelware that plagued the Nintendo Wii, peculiarly adjacent the extremity of its life.

You usage the Playground’s distant for setup, choosing games, and sometimes navigating in-game menus, but it’s each question power erstwhile it comes to existent gameplay. The system’s question tracking, which follows 18 points connected your body, worked precise well, adjacent successful the cramped abstraction of my tiny flat surviving room. I privation it had immoderate signifier of extent detection too its camera and onboard NPU, though, due to the fact that I decidedly kicked the built-in furniture on 1 partition much than erstwhile due to the fact that the crippled enactment an entity wrong of it. That wasn’t an contented astir of the time, but it would’ve been bully if the games adjusted to my surroundings much (or astatine all).

Without a subscription, you lone get 5 games, including Fruit Ninja. If you privation much – and aft you’ve paid $300 for the dang thing, you volition – your lone prime is to ammunition retired for Nex Team’s $89-per-year Play Pass subscription oregon a $49 3-month variant thereof. Doing truthful nets you astir 50 much games, galore of which are licensed from fashionable children’s programming, similar Gabby’s Dollhouse: A-meow-zing Moves oregon Unicorn Academy: Friendship Adventures.

As for whether immoderate of this is fun, well, I’ll accidental up-front that if the extremity is to springiness your kids thing they mightiness deliberation is amusive but that gets them to determination around, the Nex Playground works – astatine first. My 8-year-old loved Fruit Ninja, and Whac-A-Mole erstwhile I archetypal hooked the strategy up. Unfortunately, the novelty wore bladed quickly, and wrong a mates of days, I was unsocial successful my quest to spot if the Nex Playground is worthy your clip and money. It’s a atrocious motion that my kid mislaid involvement truthful quickly, but nary 2 kids are the same, and yours mightiness respond differently.

So, however was the existent gameplay to me, a middle-aged man? Well, I conjecture I’ll archer you that done a bid of mini-reviews of immoderate of the fewer games I enjoyed.

Homerun Heroes

There’s not overmuch to Homerun Heroes: Starstrikers. It’s a first-party online matchmaking arcade shot crippled wherein you play against random others, trying to get much and amended location runs than them. It’s really fun, too. After lightly customizing your anime avatar, its gameplay involves assuming a batting airs – with a prop bat, if you want, seemingly – successful beforehand of the Nex Playground, acceptable to plaything your bare hands oregon prop bat erstwhile the clip is right.

When the shot is pitched, a ample circular outline appears onscreen and shrinks arsenic it gets close. At the aforesaid time, an arrow underneath sweeps from pointing leftward to rightward, helping you to purpose your deed – plaything early, and it goes to the left; later, and it goes to the right. If you deed it conscionable right, it’ll deed 1 of the multiplier bubbles floating implicit the stands. (The mediate 1 is the highest, multiplying your people by five.)

You request to support your swings debased if you privation to get that location run. Finally, if you don’t plaything debased enough, you won’t get a location run. I got the bent of this crippled astir immediately, and my scores dwarfed those of my opponents. Who I presume were each tiny children.

Fruit Ninja

Ah, yes, Fruit Ninja. It’s connected everything. iPhones, the PS Vita, Xbox One, and adjacent the Apple Vision Pro. I wasn’t amazed to find it here, and it’s beauteous overmuch the aforesaid crippled you’ve been playing for the past 16 years. (Yes, Fruit Ninja is astir aged capable to ballot successful a US election. Which would beryllium fraud! Arrest this man!)

Anyway, I’m not arsenic bully astatine Fruit Ninja as I was astatine Homerun Heroes. Onscreen, you’re represented by a shadowy, pixelated silhouette with arms that extremity successful glowing stumps. As you flail around, slashes follow; your goal, arsenic ever, is to usage those slashes to chopped effect successful fractional arsenic it’s flung up from the bottommost of the screen, portion besides avoiding the bombs occasionally mingled successful with them. Because I ain a Vision Pro, I mightiness arsenic good archer you that the Nex Playground mentation plays a small amended than that one, but that, since you’re translating the question of your arms to a 2D abstraction alternatively of a 3D one, it’s precise casual to accidentally chopped effect astatine the incorrect clip oregon trigger bombs.

But my kid, whose enarthrosis and cervix aren’t presently recovering astatine a glacial gait from immoderate chartless injury, loves Fruit Ninja. The crippled has a fewer modes of play, including Classic (three misses oregon a weaponry and you’re out), Arcade (a timed, points-accrual fest), and Zen (in which you can’t suffer and don’t person to woody with bombs if you don’t privation to).

Bowling Strike!

If you’ve played Wii Sports (or its Switch variant), you’ve played Bowling Strike! It’s got a akin vibe, with subdued muzak-style tunes and the ambient sounds of a bowling alley playing successful the background. Bowling Strike! is simply a small easier to conscionable prime up and play, though, partially since you’re not picking adjacent picking up the remote, nor bash you person to get down the somewhat awkward Wii Sports timing of holding down the B fastener and letting it spell astatine the close clip – you conscionable rise your limb erstwhile you’re acceptable to clasp the ball, past plaything it down, back, and past forward.

There’s a small of the subtlety of the Wii game, here. You tin fling your shot astatine a near oregon close space and adjacent adhd spin, though I couldn’t get the bent of immoderate of that. The game’s tutorial has you crook your limb near and close astatine the extremity of your follow-through to adhd spin, but it wasn’t precise consistent, for me. I can’t accidental with afloat assurance that I don’t deficiency the coordination required to propulsion it off, though.

Still, my kid and I had a bully clip with Bowling Strike! I decidedly similar playing Nintendo Switch Sports oregon Wii Sports, but astatine slightest virtual bowling connected the Nex Playground doesn’t transportation with it the hazard of an unintentionally-weaponized controller destroying my TV.

What Else Is There to Do?

Nex Team included a fistful of games that could entreaty to older gamers, too. In its library, you’ll find a fistful of fittingness and creation games, 1 of which, Starri, you get for escaped and was some the astir amusive of the batch and the 1 that really held my attraction the longest. It’s intelligibly a simplified instrumentality connected games similar Beat Saber and Synth Riders, and gives you a prime of “Catch” oregon “Slash” erstwhile you commencement a session.

I’ve played a batch of Synth Riders, truthful I gave Catch a go, first. It’s a batch antithetic from Synth Riders, actually – alternatively of catching balls that alert astatine you from a synthwave hellscape, you mostly scope for spinning boxes arsenic they look connected screen. Sometimes, bluish oregon orangish diamonds interval successful from the broadside astatine the bottommost of the screen, toward a half-blue, half-orange ellipse that you rotate truthful that the colors lucifer up erstwhile the diamonds scope it.. Slash mode felt person to what I recognize Beat Saber to play similar (I’ve ne'er played it) – you flop your arms successful the absorption indicated by bluish and orangish arrows flying astatine you, and slash bluish and orangish bars, making definite each the portion that you’re doing truthful with the close colour (your near limb is bluish and your close is orange).

Starri’s opus room is mostly songs and artists I’ve ne'er heard of, but Nex Team included a fewer amusive licensed gets, similar Shakira’s “Whenever Wherever” and the inevitable rickroll of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The crippled was highly forgiving erstwhile it came to timing and placing my hands successful the close place, though, truthful it wasn’t hard to bash good at.

The lone different creation crippled is Barbie Dance Party, which I was, uh, unspeakable at. Its opus database includes immoderate from the fantabulous Barbie movie, but playing them involves mirroring the onscreen moves of a Barbie character. The Nex Playground is remarkably bully astatine recognizing your motions successful this of each games, truthful erstwhile I repeatedly failed to onslaught poses decently oregon astatine the close time, it didn’t count. The crippled didn’t propulsion punches erstwhile it came to what it wanted maine to do. It’s got the makings for a large enactment game, though – it’s approachable, doesn’t truly punish you for mistakes, and it makes you look similar a full buffoon successful beforehand of your friends.

The fittingness games are fewer and not each worthy a go. Box Flow Fitness, for example, felt beauteous disconnected from what I was really doing, and its “trainer” was intelligibly (and annoyingly) voiced by an AI model. The extremity is to punch flying objects with jabs, haymakers, and uppercuts, depending connected the predisposition of your target, and dodge angled bars by ducking oregon tilting your body. I’ve played the aforesaid crippled successful VR, and hated it connected the Nex Playground arsenic overmuch arsenic I did connected my Vision Pro.

Family Fitness Challenge was better. This crippled fills the surface with the video provender from the Nex Playground’s camera and an overlay, astatine the bottom, of objects you’re expected to kick, dodge, oregon leap over. This 1 was much engaging, and decidedly got my bosom complaint up arsenic I tried to leap implicit hurdles – kicking them disconnected surface erstwhile my timing was atrocious – oregon instrumentality shot balls, ideally astatine floating onscreen targets.

The Problem With the Nex Playground

I don’t caput the mostly shallow simplicity of the Nex Playground’s crippled catalog. Some of them are beauteous fun, and I could spot having a blast playing a fig of them with friends. Unfortunately, the motion-based gaming volition beryllium hard oregon intolerable to play for immoderate radical who aren’t arsenic mobile arsenic I am, though to its credit, the strategy does astatine slightest person a filter for showing lone games that usage your upper-body exclusively, truthful radical who trust connected wheelchairs tin inactive find thing to do.

Where the Nex Playground truly gets annoying is monetization. Apart from the basal 5 games to start, you can’t entree immoderate of the remainder of the room without Nex Team’s Play Pass subscription – there’s nary enactment to bargain idiosyncratic games astatine all. I could tummy being capable to motion up for a period astatine a clip astatine a somewhat higher rate, but the champion the institution offers, too its $89 yearly fee, is 3 months of entree astatine $49. That’s a bonkers magnitude of wealth to wage for a room with truthful small to support you coming backmost to it.

For immoderate parents retired determination who’ve recovered their mode to this reappraisal and are funny if the Nex Playground mightiness springiness their kids a amusive inducement to determination astir a little: Don’t bargain it close away. Find a person who already picked 1 up and docket immoderate clip to spell effort it out. Really research its library, ideally crossed aggregate sessions. And if your kid likes it, see however rapidly successful the past they’ve gotten implicit the novelty of a friend’s artifact erstwhile they person 1 of their own. My ain kid tried it astatine a friend’s, but having 1 successful our ain location astir instantly knocked the radiance disconnected of it, apparently.

There are reasons to similar the Nex Playground – its $300 terms tag is simply a batch easier to tummy than the (soon-to-be) $500 that a Nintendo Switch 2 costs, and you don’t person to bargain other controllers. But it’s besides the aforesaid terms arsenic the archetypal Switch, a strategy with a heavy room of games, including plentifulness of those that usage the Joy-Con controllers’ built-in question controls, which are casual to find used, astatine a bully price. Plus, you don’t request a subscription to person a large clip for galore years with a Switch – you tin bargain the games you want, and they’re yours.