There is not any such factor as an in a single day success.
Many people have solely lately heard of the Nex Playground console thanks to its current blockbuster Black Friday gross sales, however its creator, Nex Staff, has been round for eight years. Launched in December 2023, the {hardware} includes an AI-powered digital camera that tracks person actions, permitting gamers to work together with its family-focused assortment of video games.
It is solely out there in the US and Canada proper now. In 2023, Nex Staff shipped 5,000 units, then offered 150,000 the following 12 months after being stocked in US retailers Walmart, Goal, and BestBuy.
Thanks to enormous gross sales in 2025 – 635,000 consoles and counting – the firm is closing in on 800,000 units offered to date, and it expects this determine to hit 1 million in the first half of 2026. Though proper now, the console could be very onerous to come by due to such excessive demand.
However as famous earlier, it is taken the firm a while to get to the place it’s at this time. Nex Staff was based again in 2017 by a gaggle of Apple veterans led by David Lee, who joined the iPhone maker after his first startup, on-line spreadsheet service EditGrid, was acquired in 2008.
The corporate initially targeted on the AI-powered basketball coaching app HomeCourt, which Apple invited Nex Staff to showcase on stage at the iPhone XS launch. HomeCourt later went viral throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, so the firm created a set of motion-based video games known as Energetic Arcade.
This was a hit in Asian markets. Hundreds of thousands of downloads and “tons of of hundreds of thousands of play classes” later, Lee and his colleagues observed that if customers related their cellphone or pill to a TV to play Energetic Arcade, the firm noticed retention leap up by ten instances.
“We constructed one thing that individuals wished, however we constructed for the improper platform,” co-founder and CEO Lee explains. “That is how Nex Playground got here alongside.”
Making a console – particularly as a few of the greatest platform holders in the world seem to be shifting focus away from {hardware} – looks like a leftfield transfer. However Lee says the resolution was made after attempting to discover a good TV that might energy his firm’s ambitions. After an unsuccessful search, Nex Staff determined {that a} console was the means ahead.
“Having a {hardware} part permits us to ship the finest expertise,” Lee insists.
Kinect callback
The Nex Playground options numerous older business DNA. It is an Android field that performs video games, related to the Ouya console from 2013, however it additionally centres on controller-free movement monitoring, like Microsoft’s now discontinued Kinect. The previous noticed restricted success, however the latter was a smash hit that – together with the equally motion-controlled Nintendo Wii – expanded video games to new audiences. But this sort of motion-controlled expertise has all however disappeared, save for a handful of Nintendo Swap and Swap 2 video games.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants,” Lee admits. “Wii was a splendidly profitable console for Nintendo. Kinect offered loads. The thought of enjoying video games together with your physique appealed to a broad viewers. Our focus is on how we differ from earlier makes an attempt. If it was there and now it is gone, then one thing’s improper; in any other case, they’d nonetheless be right here.
“There are some things we do to differentiate ourselves. With AI, we’ve a brand new expertise spine which delivers experiences. It would not require hand-held sensors or headsets, in contrast to many motion-based VR video games. We simply use a digital camera to perceive your movement. The expertise has moved past requiring a sensor or a fancy digital camera system, as Kinect did. It is only a easy RGB digital camera with AI processing. We moved every part into software program.”
One feather in Nex Staff’s cap on the {hardware} facet of issues is that it’s comparatively low-cost. Nex Playground has an RRP of $249, though this drops to $199 throughout peak promotion intervals. That is not low cost, however in contrast to the US costs for Swap 2 ($449.99), PS5 ($549.99 with disc drive), Xbox Sequence S (from $399.99), or Xbox Sequence X (from $599.99), it is also not costly.
“It was actually vital to hold the value inexpensive, as a result of we serve households,” Lee says.
“We made aware selections. If we’re making household video games and wish 4 gamers, think about you want 4 controllers – what would that price? We use a single digital camera to view the complete lounge and determine the 4 gamers. There is a quite simple distant management [to select games] which could be very inexpensive. It is definitely a cost-saving there.
“One other occasion the place we made the proper alternative is the {hardware} capabilities we selected. We aren’t going to compete with PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, or Swap. Our {hardware} capabilities are roughly at a PS3 stage; you possibly can construct nice immersive video games already. We simply made the aware alternative of choosing the proper {hardware}. We have now a fairly beefy microprocessor unit (MPU), so the AI capabilities are fairly good.”
Subscription mannequin
One other lesson that Nex Staff learnt from earlier hits in the console area, particularly for these targeted at a household viewers like the Wii, is that whereas they offered enormous quantities of {hardware}, the restricted connect fee meant that the viewers was not as worthwhile because it might need been. The reply was an $89-per-year subscription known as Play Cross.
“Much more customers are open to subscriptions now,” Lee says. “It is unbelievable as a enterprise mannequin. Again in the day, Wii expanded the market, however numerous the viewers did not know Mario. They purchased Wii Match, Wii Sports activities and so they did not purchase many different Nintendo video games. These prospects weren’t very worthwhile.
“The subscription-based mannequin permits us to hold innovating for the prospects we’re serving. It is a easy, trustworthy enterprise mannequin 100% aligned with dad and mom, so youngsters cannot come and ask for increasingly video games.”
He continues: “It is sustainable and permits us not to take into consideration another type of income mannequin. Our manufacturing price range has elevated three years in a row already, and we’re utilizing this to create higher video games for our prospects.”
Most of the video games on Nex Playground are unique to the platform. Half of the titles launched in the final 12 months have been made through second-party offers the place Nex Staff companions with a developer to work carefully to get the most out of the platform.
Extra lately, Nex has been receiving elevated inbound curiosity from studios, together with “some main video games corporations”. Because of this, the agency is including to its employees to assist handle studios becoming a member of its platform.
“We’re increasing our developer expertise crew to help them and onboard them about how to leverage the platform capabilities to make nice video games, and work with them to […] push the boundaries collectively,” Lee says. “We push one another. It is a actually wholesome win-win.”
Thomas Kang, Nex’s president and a veteran of Walmart’s Innovation arm, Amazon Video games, and Disney, provides: “David’s very aware about discovering builders there that share our values and take into consideration the world in the same means, serving youngsters and households. We expect [by finding] these individuals who have made video games for that viewers and perceive the issues we’re attempting to resolve, the product will find yourself higher.”
There’s a mixture of video games on Nex Playground. First up are new titles, comparable to the Snapchat-filter-on-a-TV expertise Mirrorarma, the NexPets digital pet sport, or the Beat Saber-inspired Starri. Then there’s licensed IP, together with Bluey, Barbie, Unicorn Academy, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Rounding out the line-up are sports activities video games, comparable to Go Keeper, HomeRun Heroes: StarStrikers, and Bowling Strike.
Nex Staff believes that licensed IP has been one think about Nex Playground’s success.
“Having one thing like Bluey on our platform helps construct credibility,” Lee explains. “Dad and mom belief the platform extra as a result of they belief the IP to decide their companions proper. It is definitely crucial for us to work with recognisable IP companions. It is also one thing that children need, they need to work together with.”
One deal that Nex Staff has been in a position to lock down is with the Nationwide Hockey League (NHL). “That is a partnership that is rising,” Kang says. “All the different sports activities leagues have observed, and we’re in discussions with all of them to make their sports activities accessible to youngsters and households in order that they perceive the ability units and the guidelines and begin their journey to maybe enjoying actual sports activities. Dad and mom actually, actually love that.”
Monetary backing
Nex Staff boasts a star-studded line-up of buyers that features actors Simu Liu and Will Smith, footballer Thierry Henry, and the NBA, alongside the likes of Blue Pool Capital, Samsung Ventures, and billionaire Mark Cuban. At the second, the firm is not in search of additional funding.
“We’re beginning to attain a self-sustainable state,” Lee says. “It is vital that we proceed as a sustainable enterprise.”
After a whirlwind 2025, Nex Staff has huge plans for 2026. The corporate is bringing Playground to Europe subsequent 12 months, though it’s nonetheless attempting to lock down precisely which markets to enter. After that, the plan is to launch the {hardware} in some Asian markets.
“Our technique to develop could be very customer-focused as nicely,” Kang explains. “We’re going to do it at a really measured tempo. After we go worldwide, we’re going to be very conscious to these markets, ensuring we’ve content material localised and the UI localised.”
“We wish to have a day the place Playground might earn its place in each lounge in the world”
David Lee
Nex Staff expects the Playground to surpass 1 million gross sales throughout the first half of 2026. However past that, the firm nonetheless has loads of bold milestones, and its CEO is not in a rush to attain them.
“Our purpose will all the time constantly be serving […] our prospects higher and higher,” Lee says. “We’re bold; we would like to have a day the place Playground might earn its place in each lounge in the world. We wish to set up the proper relationship with each household we serve and ideally develop by way of phrase of mouth and attain extra households. It is step by step. I am a really affected person individual, which is why we constructed on this means for eight years, and I do not thoughts spending the remainder of my life doing this.”
Kang concludes: “There are 1.8 billion residing rooms with TVs: We have now a great distance to go. We’re simply getting began.”