The Nex Playground is a kid-friendly console that is pitched as a safer different to giving kids entry to tablets or conventional gaming gadgets. It launched within the US in December 2023, and forward of its UK launch I spoke with Nex’s bosses in regards to the product’s privateness options, technical specs, and the corporate’s success thus far.
Additionally they had lots to say in regards to the present choices for youthful avid gamers, with Tom Kang, the corporate’s president and head of worldwide, describing standard platform Roblox as “like a poster youngster for unsafe”.
The Nex Playground is a locked-down ecosystem that provides greater than 60 video games designed particularly with ages three to 12 in thoughts. Outfitted with a wide-field-of-view digicam, it depends on intuitive movement controls detected by way of video and processed fully on the system.
The comparatively modest technical specs of the Playground counsel that it is offered with wholesome margins from the get go, eradicating the necessity for Nex to claw again revenue elsewhere. A library of 5 video games is included with the preliminary buy, whereas a budget-friendly subscription known as the Play Go allows customers to entry a quickly rising collection of extra titles — and covers the prices of future recreation improvement.
Dad or mum-first design
Lee thinks that this method is price it, and can set the corporate up for fulfillment in the long term. “We solely have a enterprise if dad and mom are resolving their issues, and stick with us for very very long time,” he instructed me. “We have to construct that belief, as a result of that’s core of the entire mannequin of how this works.”
It is a message that is clearly resonating with dad and mom within the US, the place the Nex Playground has steadily grown from transport simply 5,000 items in late 2023 to virtually 700,000 final 12 months. The product even made headlines when it outsold Sony’s PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Version system for per week in November 2025 (per Circana Retail Monitoring Service knowledge).
“We managed to do one thing that individuals really feel couldn’t be executed for a very long time,” added Lee. “There’s been no new entrant to the market in over 20 years, and we managed to interrupt by way of. We needed to convey again a few of the fundamentals and hold our motivation pure.”
The console’s success comes at a time the place dad and mom worldwide have been rising more and more involved in regards to the security of their children on-line. Within the UK, Roblox is the hottest gaming platform among the many eight to 12 age demographic, however has been stated to “pose actual dangers to kids’s security” by on-line security consultants as a result of obvious chance of them encountering inappropriate content material and speaking with adults on-line.
It hosts million of video games made by different Roblox gamers, and gives the instruments required for customers to create their very own. It is owned by Roblox Company, a publicly listed firm that is price greater than $30 billion.
Whereas Kang revealed that he revered the current introduction of age-based accounts and enhanced parental controls, he described retrofitting safeguarding techniques like that as “the worst factor you would do to a enterprise.”
“They seem to be a publicly traded firm, we by no means wish to get there. We wish to develop and construct that belief that will get stronger over time,” he added. “That is why gradual progress is superb, as a result of it lets you make incremental enhancements with belief and security in thoughts. Not, ‘hey I want 10 million customers subsequent week.'”
For its half, a Roblox consultant instructed us that security is a precedence for the platform, and pointed to its many safeguarding options. These embody the rollout of necessary facial age estimation know-how earlier this 12 months (a primary for a gaming platform of its measurement), that new age-based account system, and a collection of parental controls.
Though it gives chat performance, it’s monitored with filters that intention to dam delicate info and detect makes an attempt to maneuver conversations to different platforms. The corporate additionally assists legislation enforcement as acceptable.
Pre-orders for the Nex Playground begin within the UK on Might 18 for £269, with the console accessible at Amazon, Argos, and Smyths Toys. These within the US can choose one up now for $299 at retailers together with Amazon and Greatest Purchase.
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