"If you told me last year the Nex Playground would outsell Microsoft's Xbox, even for two weeks, I would have laughed my way out of the room. It's a three-inch cube of a game console that's likely less powerful than your phone, one which uses a single camera to track your body. It only plays curated, certified kid-safe games. Though frequently compared to the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect, the Nex Playground is worse than either at tracking motion."
"Nor is it cheap: $250 upfront plus $89-a-year or $49-a-quarter annual subscription to get more than a basic sampler. If you like a game, you can't buy it separately. Many are little better than shovelware and most are graphically ugly; I haven't tried a single game with the charm or polish of Nintendo or the best of Apple Arcade. And yet, lying sick in bed with a 99-degree fever, my five-year-old begged me to let her play."
The Nex Playground is a compact, three-inch cube game console that uses a single camera to track player movement and offers only curated, kid-safe games. The device is likely less powerful than modern phones and delivers inferior motion tracking compared with older systems like the Wii and Kinect. The price starts at $250 plus a mandatory subscription ($89/year or $49/quarter) for more than a basic sampler, and individual games cannot be purchased. Many titles resemble shovelware and lack strong graphics or polish. Despite flaws, the simple, controller-free games encourage energetic, family-friendly play, sometimes provoking strong emotional reactions.
Read at The Verge
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