The sold-out Nex Playground made my kids laugh and cry
If you told me last year the Nex Playground would outsell Microsoft's Xbox, even for two weeks, I would have laughed my way out of the room.
It's a three-inch cube of a game console that's likely less powerful than your phone, one which uses a single camera to track your body. It only plays curated, certified kid-safe games. Though frequently compared to the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect, the Nex Playground is worse than either at tracking motion.
Nor is it cheap: $250 upfront plus $89-a-year or $49-a-quarter subscription to get more than a basic sampler. If you like a game, you can't buy it separately. Many are little better than sho …