The popular Kinect/Wii Clone You’ve Never Heard of!

The Nex Playground is a motion-based game console that feels like a spiritual successor to the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Kinect. Developed by Nex Team Inc, it is a tiny cube powered by an ARM chip and a custom Android-based operating system called Play OS.

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.

Tapping into that “Wii” crowd is something I haven’t seen in a long while. A system that everyone can play. But this system is closer to the Xbox Kinect than the Nintendo Wii with its controller-less functionality. This is exactly the type of console my parents would have gotten me for Christmas.

The Tech: Worse than Wii?

Nearly 20 years ago, the Nintendo Wii set the standard for motion controls. A few years later, Microsoft’s Kinect captured your whole body with no controller at all. The Playground is different: the box is the console, with a single wide-angle camera up front. But it also doesn’t “see” 3D depth; it has to estimate your body pose from flat images.

The Nex Playground is definitely built for that “set it and forget it” parent logic, but under the hood, it’s a modern piece of tech. Here is a breakdown of how it handles the internet and AI, along with the potential for the modding community.

Games & Performance

The games on the Nex Playground currently feel a bit basic. While Fruit Ninja is probably the most entertaining title in the bunch, it’s a simple game that you can already play for free on virtually any touchscreen device.

Verdict

“One of the most important things we should do is learn from history and try not to commit the same limitations… Nintendo expanded the audience with Wii. When you expand the audience, and they want different things… that’s a bit of a problem.”

The Nex Playground feels like the camera-tracking console Nintendo never quite got around to making. Success in the living room isn’t about raw power or complex hardware, it’s about removing every barrier between the player and the fun.