Nex Playground fits with a trend of products for parents who want to limit screen time

The Nex Playground console’s basketball game.

The Nex Playground might remind you of the old Nintendo Wii — with games played by body movements, like jumping, flapping your arms, and dancing.

It’s apparently flying off the shelves — and with backing from Mark Cuban and other VCs — it’s got some buzz behind it. It also has the benefit of being a closed system that doesn’t allow kids to talk to strangers like some other systems.

You might call it a video game system for parents who don’t want their kids playing video games all day. I talked to the CEO after trying the $199 system myself with my own kids and family. (I’ll return the unit to the company, per B-17 policy.)

“We’re not calling it a game console,” Nex founder and CEO David Lee told me. “We call it active-play system.”

It appears to have the momentum to break through as a hit toy. The console launched in late 2023 and sold all 5,000 units through a pre-sale. This year, by December, Nex had sold 100,000 units, Lee said.

“We sold out on Amazon in the morning of Black Friday,” Lee said. The company’s new problem is having enough units in stock to last through the holidays. He said Nex could easily sell through 250,000 units, though it doesn’t have that much inventory at the moment.

The popularity comes as some parents are increasingly worried about their kids and screen time. Jonathan Haidt’s popular book, “The Anxious Generation,” illustrates these worries — that Gen Alpha kids will become iPad kids. Parents are looking to get their children away from devices — and, in some cases, are willing to pay for other devices to do so.

Nex Playground fits into this idea. A few games come free with the unit, but an $89-a-year subscription unlocks about 40 more games, with new ones being added regularly. It’s raised millions of dollars in funding from Cuban, the NBA, and other VC firms.

The Nex Playground device is about the size of a baseball and attaches to your TV.

Earlier this year, shortly after Nex first launched, my colleague Conz Preti tested it out with her kids and loved it. I tested the Nex out with the help of several young testers (my own kids and some of their friends, a cousin, and even a grandparent) and it was a hit — the games were fun, and they were good enough to keep all ages happy.

Unlike other gaming consoles like an Xbox or Nintendo where games can cost $50 to $60 each, the Nex’s games are a subscription model — get all the games for $89 a year.

While this added cost might seem unappealing, especially to families already experiencing subscription fatigue, Dr. Emily Greenwald, Nex’s pediatrician advisor, noted something I can relate to: It means no negotiating or pleading to buy individual games.

The subscription model also means the games are ad-free, and there are no in-app purchases — no gems to buy to level up or Robux to accidentally charge to your credit card.

None of the games have any violence or guns (an archery game is the closest thing to a weapon). There are no online chats or games you play with strangers on the internet.

The fact that it requires physical activity is an added benefit. “In the end, it’s not addictive because you cannot be jumping around for five hours,” Lee contended.

It fits into an interesting trend of products that go viral on Facebook among moms (there’s an active Nex Facebook Group with almost all women), like the Nugget play couch, the Yoto Player, and Tonie Box audiobook players, or (screen-free) The Mighty music player. These are all products where the selling point is that they’re low- or no-screen — made for parents who are willing to shell out money for products that will engage and occupy their kids.

“Realistically in this world, there are screens. And a some point, to participate, at least in the country we live in, you’re going to have to learn how to do things on screens,” Greenwald said. “You can limit [screen time], and yes, going to a real playground is still better. But for the days where it’s cold, it’s rainy, you’ve already done that — this is great.”