If you had to guess what the most sought-after toy of the season was, you’d probably be wrong — because, odds are, you’ve never heard of it.
Some industry experts hadn't even until last month, when it became a Black Friday hit, outselling Xbox, blowing up on TikTok Shop, and ranking No. 1 in Amazon’s Toys & Games category, per The Wall Street Journal.
The toy in question? Nex Playground, a $249 motion-based gaming console for kids that looks a bit like a Rubik’s cube with a camera and is on track to 4x its sales this year.
How it works
The device is similar to a Nintendo Wii, but instead of controllers and buttons, it uses computer vision and AI to track users’ movements.
Besides a TV, WiFi, and floor space, it comes with everything you need, including five free games.
Why parents love it: It’s cheaper than other console systems, can accommodate up to four users at once, and unlike regular video games and screen time, it keeps kids off their butts.
No overnight success
In 2018, Nex, originally a software company, debuted its first product: HomeCourt, a basketball shot-tracking app powered by AI and computer vision.
But in 2020, recognizing the product’s limited market potential, it repurposed the same technology to introduce gamified workouts.
Those were a hit, so it made a separate app solely for AR games. But after reviewing user engagement data, they eventually concluded that they needed to build their product for a bigger screen (i.e., TVs).
That’s when Nex made what one investor called “the mother of all pivots” — from software to hardware — because of which we’re now here talking about Playground, a success story.
How it’s going
Before pivoting, Nex was making ~$3m and unprofitable. Now, thanks to Playground (which is currently sold out at most major retailers that carry it) it’s on track to break even, with $150m+ in projected revenue for 2025 and 600k expected sales — up from 150k in 2024 and just 5k the year before that.
But will its success last?
Well, it did recently obtain licensing rights to the hit children’s show “Bluey” for a new game, which, to use WSJ’s words, “is like a baseball team signing Shohei Ohtani.”
So we’re gonna bet yes.