Cameron Faulkner is an editor covering deals and gaming hardware. He joined in 2018, and after a two-year stint at Polygon, he rejoined The Verge in May 2025.

The Nex Playground is a motion-controlled, cube-shaped console for ages five and up that’s selling like hotcakes. It came in third for home console sales during Black Friday week, according to sales data shared on Bluesky from Mat Piscatella of Circana, falling behind only Nintendo’s Switch 2 and Sony’s PlayStation 5. That’s an impressive feat for Nex, and not a great look for Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, which saw two price hikes this year.

If you missed your chance to pick one up at its 20 percent off sale price, you can do so now through December 14th. Best Buy and Walmart are selling it for $199.99.

$199

What if the dream of Microsoft’s Kinect lived on? It does in the Nex Playground, an all-in-one, motion-controlled console filled with kid-friendly games. Exhaust and entertain your little ones. You’re welcome.

The Nex Playground includes the console itself, a remote for navigating its menus, a power supply and HDMI cable, as well as a magnetic privacy cover that snaps onto the Playground’s camera lens. There are a ton of games that you can download to the Playground — all of which are controlled by moving your body — although the console comes with just five to get you started (Fruit Ninja, Starri, Party Fowl, Go Keeper, and Whack-a-Mole Deluxe are all pretty fun).

If you want more, including a bunch of licensed games involving Elmo, Bluey, Care Bears, How to Train Your Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Peppa Pig, you’ll need a Play Pass to access them. New games are added to the catalog every season, and are automatically downloaded to your Playground.

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• Cameron Faulkner