A machine you've almost certainly never heard of just spent a week beating the PS5 as the second best-selling games console in the US behind the Switch 2

1. Hardware

A machine you've almost certainly never heard of just spent a week beating the PS5 as the second best-selling games console in the US behind the Switch 2 News By Jordan Gerblick published 4 December 2025

The Nex Playground reigns (almost) supreme

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(Image credit: Nex)

The Nex Playground, an Xbox Kinect-type motion-controlled games console, has quietly spent a week outselling both the PS5 and Xbox Series X as the second best-selling hardware in the US.

As reported by Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, the number-one best-selling games console in the US for the week ending in November 22 was the Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle - not a huge surprise given the system recently released and has been a massive success. But what followed the Switch 2 is hugely surprising, as it doesn't start with an X or a P. It's the Nex Playground, a console I'm admittedly hearing about today for the first time. In third place is the PS5 Slim Digital, and Piscatella's data report ends there. "So that's neat," he said.

US best-selling hardware SKUs for week ending Nov 22, 2025, ranked on units sold: 1) NS2 Mario Kart World Bundle 2) NEX Playground Interactive Gaming System 3) PS5 Slim Digital 1 TB So that's neat. Source: Circana Retail Tracking Service

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-12-04T00:25:17.360Z

The Nex Playground actually came out back in 2023, which adds to my surprise at only just now discovering it. To be fair, though, it is explicitly designed for kids and families, and I'm an adult man with no kids.

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Anyway, Nex CEO David Lee has billed it as an unofficial "spiritual successor" to Microsoft's Kinect, using a wide-angle camera and an AI-powered engine to track your movement and negate the need for any traditional game controller. The console originally cost $199, but its price was increased to $249 in May 2025. The Nex Playground includes five motion-controlled games; Fruit Ninja, Starri, and Whac-a-Mole, Go Keeper, and Party Fowl; and you can access a whole catalog of games through the console's Play Pass subscription, which is $49 for three months or $89 for a year.

Apparently, those features and that pricing were attractive enough to randomly catapult the humble Nex Playground all the way to the number two spot of best-selling consoles, at least for a week. The impending holidays were likely a factor, but it's a mightily impressive feat regardless.

Since it nabbed the top spot, let's take a look at the best Switch 2 games available right now.

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After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

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