Oi, UK gamers - put down your Yorkshire Tea and listen up. Nex Playground, the camera-based active gaming system that turns your living room into a playground (and your sofa into a hazard), is now available for pre-order in the UK and Ireland, according to GamesIndustry.biz. The asking price? A crispy £269.
So what even is this thing?
For the uninitiated, Nex Playground is essentially the spiritual successor to every chaotic Kinect memory you've suppressed since 2010 - except this time it uses AI-powered camera tech to track your movements without needing a console. Think less "expensive brick connected to your Xbox" and more standalone active gaming device designed to get kids (and let's be honest, competitive parents) off the couch.
The system uses body-tracking technology to let players interact with games physically, which in theory sounds amazing and in practice means you'll be explaining to your neighbours why someone was doing jumping jacks at 11pm on a Tuesday.
Is £269 a fair price to pay?
That's the big question, isn't it? At £269, Nex Playground is entering a market where parents are already spending serious gold coins on Switch 2 pre-orders and trying to remember what a disposable income felt like. It's not exactly an impulse buy, but it's not absurdly priced for a standalone gaming peripheral with its own ecosystem either.
The device has already launched in other markets, so UK players aren't exactly getting a day-one experience - more like a "we finally unlocked this region" DLC drop. Still, if you've been eyeing it up from across the Channel with envious eyes, your time has officially come.
Should you hit that pre-order button?
If you've got kids who treat the living room like a boss arena anyway, or if you're personally haunted by the ghost of Ring Fit Adventure gains you never achieved, Nex Playground at least looks like a legitimate contender for active gaming. Pre-orders are live now in the UK and Ireland, so the choice is yours - spend the £269 or keep pretending you'll use that gym membership you bought in January.
We'll be keeping an eye on how this one performs when it actually lands in British living rooms. Expect chaos. Expect fun. Expect at least one broken lamp.
