The CEO of Nex has explained how they’ve channelling Nintendo with its Nex Playground console, which recently outsold the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
As PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and even Nintendo Switch 2 sales take a notable dip, one console has managed to buck the downwards trend.
The Nex Playground, a controller-free console designed around family-friendly motion games, managed to outsell both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S for one week last month. The console originally launched in 2023 and sales have surpassed 600,000 units in 2025, four times the amount of the previous year.
While this isn’t anywhere near the big dogs, it’s notable considering the Nex Playground is only available in the US and Canada. It’s set to launch in more countries next year, and while Nex hasn’t said the UK specifically, it seems very likely.
The family friendly angle, something Sony and Microsoft have largely abandoned in recent generations, coupled with the cheap price of $249 (£186) have led to its success, but according to Nex CEO David Lee, they also have a sustainability in its subscription model which its inspiration, the Nintendo Wii, wasn’t able to tap into.
‘One of the most important things we should do is learn from history and try not to commit the same limitations, and that’s why we have a subscription model,’ Lee told The Game Business.
‘Nintendo expanded the audience with Wii. When you expand the audience, and they want different things, and they only buy Wii Fit, Wii Sports and not many others… that’s a bit of a problem. Who am I to speak for Nintendo? Nintendo obviously has a really great strategy on how they want to serve the audience.
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‘But, from our perspective, we want to build something sustainable. And if we build a platform and people come in and buy a couple of games and that’s it… the whole system is not sustainable. It’s just not. It’s very important that we set ourselves up to serve our customer continuously with new innovations, that is how the whole system can sustain.’
He added: ‘But it started with Wii. We are standing on a giant’s shoulder.’
The list of best-selling Wii games makes clear that he’s wrong about people only buying Wii Fit, but the general concept of a subscription – something that was not prevalent for video game consoles at the time of the Wii – does make seem to make sense for Nex Playground.
The Nex Playground comes bundled with five starter games, but in order to access the full library, owners need to buy a Play Pass priced at $49 (£36) for three months, or $89 (£66) for 12 months.
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The subscription service isn’t cheap, but it’s the only option available to gain access to new games, with no ability to buy titles individually.
The games themselves are of a lower production value than you’d get on other consoles, with the majority built by Nex’s three internal studios, but interest from external studios is apparently on the rise, with half of the 2025 line-up coming from third party teams.
A big boon to the Nex Playground’s library is the addition of officially licensed titles, with games based on Bluey, How To Train your Dragon, Sesame Street, Barbie, Kung Fu Panda, Peppa Pig, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaking about the growing interest from external teams, Lee added: ‘It’s gone from us knocking on the door and the door doesn’t even open, to them coming to us. Oh my God, I am so thankful for the change. And now we have conversations with some really famous studios that are interested in making games for the platform.’
The Nex Playground might be an obscure oddity at the moment, but if it does get more developers on side, and breaks through internationally, it could become a serious competitor for an overlooked audience who can’t afford more expnesive systems.
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