From our other sites
The story
According to a report from gaming news site automaton-media, developer Nex plans to bring “Nex Playground” — a controller-free gaming system that uses a camera and AI to read body movement — to Japan in 2027. In the US, it’s sold as a $249 console (as low as $239 on sale) bundled with the “Play Pass” subscription service, which gives players unlimited access to over 60 games on top of the 5 titles included at purchase. On the thread, opinions split over what the Japanese price would be: some predicted a price in the ¥20,000s, banking on cheap hardware costs being recouped through subscription revenue, while others countered that the US price should simply be converted directly into yen.
Developer Nex plans to bring the controller-free gaming system
“Nex Playground” to Japan in 2027. Also, this fall SEGA will release,
from the “Sonic” series, titles including “Sonic Force: Rival Rush,” and
Source: automaton-media.com / Original article here
What people said
Kinect projects light into the room and captures human movement in 3D based on the distortion of that light.
NEX, on the other hand, uses AI to convert 2D camera footage into 3D and captures joint movement that way.
So they're actually completely different things.
Isn't this closer to EyeToy?
The capture method doesn't matter. What the player actually has to do is no different from Kinect — meaning it's just a hassle.
We don't hold a controller because the hardware forces us to, we hold it because we WANT to play that way.
Even the Mario Kart wheel controller gets abandoned pretty fast.
I bet a lot of people in Japan don't have this much space 🥺
The sofa's way too far from the TV for its size.
Way too expensive, no way.
It uses the Amlogic A311D2, a mature 12nm chip that only costs a few thousand yen to make, it's a subscription-required model, and it's got a lead who's ex-Sega and knows the Japanese market well — so it might come out around ¥9,800.
So is the console itself cheap?
It got a price hike in April, so it's around $239 on sale now.
Before the hike it was $199 on sale.
They're probably gonna price it at like ¥50,000, right?
Since it's a subscription model, they don't need to recoup costs through hardware sales, so even at the high end it's probably in the ¥20,000s.
It's $249 for the console PLUS a subscription in America — what's your basis for thinking Japan gets it cheaper?
Because the hardware is barely a step up from a ¥2,000 webcam, so the production cost is cheap.
I thought they'd use it more in Mario Party, but it's really just a bonus afterthought.
Since it's all done in software, it's actually possible to copy it outright, but apparently it's common knowledge in the game industry that console bundle add-ons don't sell.
They could straight-up copy it with next-gen hardware, but by then NEX might have IPO'd and become a heavyweight player.
They should've just stuck with the Switch philosophy that fun isn't about graphics.
Same goes for motion capture tech — even RC drones sell for like ¥3,000 these days. Instead of chasing resolution and frame rates, they should've been turning mature, cheap tech like that into fun experiences.
But that's got nothing to do with a hardware-war board ("geha")…
Game hardware (that's what "geha" is short for).
That's not a reason — they're already selling it with fat margins in America.
What's the reason Japan alone would get a different business model?
That's just wishful thinking, isn't it?
There's a lead who knows the Japanese market inside and out, so the chance of them botching it with a ridiculous price is zero. They might launch it high and then discount it later, though.
If they really knew the market well, they wouldn't release something like this at all.
What's your basis for saying that?
It's a different topic, but you see this all the time in next-gen console threads — "it might get pricier, it might get cheaper" — with zero actual basis. Same thing here.
Right now all we actually know is the US price.
I think it'll sell at least a million units.
You mean 10,000, right?
At least a million? I see — well, one thing's for sure, you clearly don't understand the Japanese market.
Converted to yen that's ¥33,814, and it's listed on Amazon as having sold over 6,000 units in the past month.
What even is this lol lol
Thought it'd be a one-hit wonder, but it's surprisingly still selling well.
It's so easy to use, and if you think of it as a diet expense it feels cheap — I bet a lot of people keep the subscription going for that reason.
Motion capture itself is mature tech so it can be copied, but NEX's hardware concept and business model can't be.
Hardware:
Low price, compact, no controller, camera built into the unit.
Business model:
– Effectively a subscription-required model
– Keeps releasing mini-games one after another so players never get bored
– Collaborates with all kinds of IP (music, sports, movies, gaming schools) to pull in those users
Feels like PlayStation minus the flood of cheap Chinese shovelware ("gunball"-style filler games), aimed at non-otaku normies ("riajuu") instead.
Feels like they filled exactly the gap nobody else was in.
The fact that a move this clever was still up for grabs is pretty impressive.
Don't forget MS is a monster with a ¥600 trillion market cap.
Bottomless Gates money (lol)
An unprofitable division (lol)
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Nex Playground captures joint movement by using AI to convert 2D camera footage into 3D, making it technically distinct from Kinect, which measures depth via projected light. In the US, it uses a general-purpose chip believed to cost only a few thousand yen to produce, and generates revenue through subscription fees rather than hardware sales — a structure drawing attention for potentially sidestepping the pricing hurdle that has historically kept controller-free devices from catching on in Japan. That said, the prices floated in the thread — “¥9,800 in Japan,” “in the ¥20,000s” — are speculation based on the US price and estimated chip cost, not an official announcement from Nex. It’s also worth noting that Nintendo’s Switch 2, despite including a camera, hasn’t pursued similar functionality, underscoring how hard it is for such features to catch on as built-in hardware extras.
*This article was compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) board thread “[Nintendo in Trouble] “NEX Playground,” Which Beat Xbox in Last Year’s US Black Friday Sales, Confirmed to Launch in Japan Next Year.”
Leave a Reply