Nex Playground

Everything old becomes new again. Just as my 12-year-old daughter is wearing fashions that look as though they just stepped out of a time machine from 1997, video game trends seem to be developing cycles of relevancy. Take, for example, the Nex Playground, which is a great little device that strongly feels like a modernized, streamlined version of the now-ancient-history Xbox Kinect.

My kids (the aforementioned 12-year-old and her eight-year-old brother) are too young to remember the Kinect, and they barely have any sense of what the Nintendo Wii had to offer in regards to motion-based gaming. So for them, Nex Playground's primary pitch — the concept of playing a game using their bodies as the controller with no other devices needed — is a completely novel idea.

Since its arrival in my house, the Nex Playground has abruptly taken over all gaming activity. The Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and even their precious phones have been shunned by my children in favor of gyrating wildly in front of the Playground. Fortnite and Minecraft have gone bye bye for the time being, yesterday's news. Now all my kids want to do is play Playground, and invite other kids over to play Playground. Playground, Playground, Playground, that's all they want to talk about. This thing is a bona fide hit.

I don’t mind admitting that I was completely in the dark regarding the existence of Playground when I was offered the review. This seems like one of those niche products (similar to the Playdate), where if you know, you know. But if I, a game writer and reviewer, am unaware of its existence, I think it’s safe to say that to most consumers, Playground will come as a surprise. I should note, however, that since I first Googled it, the Playground has been popping up all over my social media feeds, showing that Nex’s targeted marketing game is strong.

The developers and engineers at Nex have clearly put their all into the presentation of this thing. A small cube about the size of a baseball with a camera on it, the Playground box comes with a plug, an HDMI cord, and a very simple remote, which is primarily used for menu navigation. Unpacking the Playground and setting it up was a snap, due to some smart packaging and intuitive menus — giving the entire onboarding experience a modern, almost Apple-like feel. We were up and running less than four minutes after opening the package.

The Playground has a little camera in front, with a smart magnetic lens cover for those concerned about privacy. You just kinda set it in front of your TV, close to the edge of the stand, and the device handles all the calibration from there. You need about a 6-foot x 6-foot area to play, but my slightly more shallow living room setup seems to be working just fine. Once you have completed Wi-Fi connection, Playground immediately starts downloading games and you are off to the races.

We had little problem playing four-player multiplayer games in our limited space, so don't worry too much if your living room is a little cramped. I would worry more about the kids crashing through the floor to the basement with all the jumping they'll be doing.

Playground games are all focused on physical movement. The device tracks human hands, and other body parts, but mostly hands, and it’s obvious that the technology has advanced significantly since the Kinect days. Tracking is on point, and even when I attempt to fool the thing, it figures out my tricks. Many of the games place your actual image into the game space, so you can see yourself flapping and whirling around at the games’ command. Some of my family’s favorite games are nothing more than image filters, but my kids are seemingly happy to mess with them and giggle for hours on end.

Nex Playground comes with five games out of the box, which give you a nice sampling of what is available. These include Fruit Ninja, which is an automatic win with my younger son when it comes to two primary factors: name recognition, and an excuse to flail around wildly. Also of note in the default package is Stari, a sort of mix of Dance Dance Revolution and Just Dance. In Stari, players follow on-screen prompts with their hands, performing certain positions and actions to the beat of surprisingly mainstream pop songs as prompted by on-screen symbols. It works remarkably well, and offers quite a workout on higher difficulties.

Though the default games are cool, the real meat of the Playground experience is found in the full library, which is offered as a subscription. You can pay $49 for a three-month pass, or $89 for a year long (the obvious better deal) to unlock every game Playground has. There are around 30 titles, and new ones are added every month. These games range from some run-of-the-mill free-to-play endless runners that have been adapted from mobile to work with full body controls to some really great fitness apps for adults. The kids have been digging into the library for a week now, and still have only played about 2/3 of what is available — some of the games are so good that they get stuck on them.

Surprisingly, some of the more popular Playground games in my house are learning-oriented. There’s a geography game that tasks players with throwing darts at countries or states on a blank map, and the kids will play that thing for hours. There’s also a multiple-choice trivia app that gets a lot of love. And more than once, I’ve walked in to find the 12-year-old playing Gabby’s Dollhouse or Elmo with her 21-month-old sister, manually manipulating the baby’s arms like a marionette so she can play, both of them giggling hysterically.

The stuff on Playground is not hardcore gamer material. These games are strictly family-friendly fare, and there isn’t a ton of depth. It became clear pretty quickly that Playground is not for me. Rather, it is something that I will engage in at the behest of my children, who are the true audience here. And the price of the subscription might be seem a little prohibitive at first, at least until your kids beg and beg and wear you down. It’s a shame that Xbox would probably never consider licensing the somewhat deeper Kinect library to Nex to add some depth to the experience, but that’s likely a pipe dream.

But even with a selection of apps that don’t lead to hours of deep thought, there is something to be said for a device that gets the family bouncing around the room on a rainy day. Things tend to get loud and funny when Playground is being used, and there have been several Playground-related visits from nearby friends. I suspect a Playground slumber party will materialize not too far into the future.

Though I consider it to be more of a toy than a console, my kids have some very strong feelings about the Nex Playground, to the point where they started fretting about the subscription running out on the second day. Frankly, my children think Playground is the greatest invention since Mario. It has absolutely taken over my house. Both of them have pulled me aside separately and said things like, “Make sure you give this a really good review. This is one of the best things we’ve ever had.” So please, parents, consider this a good review. This is one of the best things we've ever had.