When I heard that the Xbox wasn't the top seller
this past holiday season, it didn't come as that much of a surprise.
But then I learned it wasn't even in the top three.
That's right, the box in third was less X and more necks.
But what is this thing? Well, if you've found yourself missing the days
of wee bowling on the couch, this modestly specced cube
has been quietly providing the solution, becoming the go-to box for family gaming
over the last two years. But while the brand is undeniably fun and friendly,
offering up old school local multiplayer fun for gamers
and their game curious friends and family, not to mention that its entire catalog
is KidsSafePlus Coppa certified, there are some modern games industry habits
that make it a little less wallet friendly
than it might seem at first glance. Maybe if I glance at it a third time,
I'll see something that makes me feel a bit better about it.
Like this segway to our sponsor.
The packaging for the next cube is delightfully well organized.
You get the console itself, a power cord, an HDMI cable to connect your TV or monitor and a remote.
But you won't be gaming with that.
It is solely for navigating the UI. All gameplay input is handled by this little guy right here,
an ultra-wide lens camera that accommodates full body motion controls
across as many as four players. We'll be trying that out very shortly.
First though, let's talk about behind the lens where there's an ARM-based computer
that should perform about like a mid-range phone from a couple of years ago,
alongside a dedicated AI coprocessor that, shockingly, is not shoehorned in for no reason.
It offers benefits to both latency for your controls
and, surprisingly, privacy. See, having a local NPU on the playground
turns your movements into a trackable skeleton that eliminates any need for the camera to capture any video
and allows it to run completely offline, only using the internet to authenticate your account
during setup and to download games to its 64 gigs of non-expandable storage
that has five games pre-installed out of the box.
Let's try a couple out. Let's try Wack-A-Mole.
We're Wack-A-Moles. Boom.
What is that? Wait, the fire, ah, that. Don't touch the fire, that.
Okay. Oh yeah, well, this is, wow, this is so much more fun than that.
I don't wanna bump my head.
Oh, where'd it go, Linus? Sorry. All right, the gameplay tells us a lot
about the age group that they're targeting with this device. Just a shy bit younger than the average billionaire.
But, unlike Jeffy E. and his friends, Nex is also interested in attracting an older audience
and snuck in some more compelling gaming experiences based on two of the best-selling rhythm VR games.
Let's try out Starry. On boot, it basically asks Beat Saber or Synth Riders.
I think we all know which one I wanna play. Man, there's like, no.
Shut up. What am I supposed to be doing?
VR is definitely better for this. I mean, I'm still getting some colors, I don't know.
Kind of fun, definitely got me warm. Oh, perfect opportunity to show off
our new clean-up wizard T-shirt available now at lttstore.com.
Let's talk about the tech. Since there's only an AI-assisted camera feed,
the playground infers depth. Rather than mapping it out like its spiritual predecessor,
the Xbox Connect, which used IR in order to perceive depth.
In some games, you can even see some of the 18 tracking points
that it uses to guesstimate your position in 3D space and the positioning of your joints.
Now, when you're looking out for it, you can tell that this approach gives up some accuracy,
even compared to much older body tracking solutions. But it also made way for the ultra-wide lens
that makes the playground usable very close up in smaller living spaces
and or with more players. So yeah, it's not perfect.
And if you're a latency nerd, you are going to notice that.
But it is responsive enough that kids and even casual adults should be able to overlook it.
Wait, adults? Yes, one of our new writers had two college-aged girls over.
Weird flex, okay. Anyway, the point is it was while he was working
on this project and they ended up not only trying out
the next playground, but playing Barbie dance party for hours, which, okay, less impressed.
But it's not as bad as it sounds either. For the blissfully unaware, it's pretty much the just dance of Nex.
And like much of the rest of their game lineup, it is a small game, but it includes content
from surprisingly mainstream artists. They even got a couple of Dula Peep tracks.
I mean, check this out. These are just a few of the many titles
that become available on the next cube once you subscribe to Nex's Play Pass,
which, uh-oh, this is where that wallet unfriendliness comes in.
See, none of these games, even Bluey Buster Move,
can be purchased outright. There's no App Store, so you either play
the five games it comes with, and yes, that whack-a-mole thing we showed you earlier
counts as one entire game, or you pay the monthly subscription
to get access to the entire game library forever.
And you know that your kids are gonna lose their minds if you miss a payment,
and all of a sudden, their next cube turns into a lame cube.
Obviously, the easiest way to avoid that disappointment is to just never let them try any of these games
in the first place, but let's say you're one of the millions who bought one of these already,
what kind of content is in here? I gotta say, if we're measuring based on sheer quantity,
I'm actually pretty impressed. They're up to 55 games now,
and they've been adding about 20 per year. With that said, most of the games
are more like arcade games than like the rich gaming experiences
that you might expect on a different console or on a PC.
Let's try a couple. Hmm, oh, that's cool.
It even tracks your position.
Yup, that's Wii Tennis, all right. All right, let's try a different game.
Boy, okay.
Okay, oh, dang it. This is, okay, this is not that easy.
I guess the upside of the games being kind of simple is that each title only takes up roughly 400 megabytes
of space, which helps to stretch out the usefulness of that 64 gigs of onboard storage.
Now, at this point, I can practically hear you screaming.
Mobile grade graphics, no raw input tracking,
no third party games, not to mention a subscription. If you want more than five games,
who could possibly want this? And the answer is families.
A lot of three to 10 year olds just wanna jump around
and play and a lot of parents need them to jump around
and play in a way that isn't destructive.
And in that context, Nexa's business model actually starts to make a lot more sense.
The playground may be expensive, not to mention have an ongoing cost,
but it's a lot cheaper than a babysitter and there are no expensive controllers to get lost
or broken or come up with Cheeto dust. And sure, the gameplay is basic,
but it's also easy to pick up. So it's not hard to imagine why this casual console
could appeal to both kids and drunken adults.
Just maybe don't mix the two. You obviously will need the Play Pass
in order to get any value out of this thing, which rockets the cost from $250 to $340 in the first year
and then infinity beyond that since you pay for it forever.
But if you look at the community reaction to this thing, it seems like the only ones who are really upset about it
are us gamers who didn't even know it existed anyway
before it made headlines in December. The non-gamery families who buy this thing
seem to absolutely love it. And when you compared a Nintendo,
whose console is more expensive, whose games are more expensive
and who wants an annual subscription from you anyway, just for basic functionality like cloud saves.
At least this is like getting bent over gently with lube.
And once you're bored of it, I guess you just cancel your subscription.
I mean, I don't love that they want a yearly lock-in to get the better price.
That sucks. But it's also kind of par for the course for these types of products.
And at least they haven't embraced other crappy industry norms like microtransactions
or in-game loot boxes yet.
Bottom line then, next is built a business model where Uya and others have failed to compete with the big three,
but it's not gonna be right for everyone. And the question that I would be asking myself
as a parent and potential buyer is, would my kid get bored of going to the arcade
every single day? For younger kids, or let's say you're a mom
who runs an after-school care program for other parents in the school,
the answer might be no, they probably wouldn't get bored.
But for everyone else, unless you have very casual friends
that are only willing to touch we sports level experiences
and you desperately want to game with them, I think the novelty is likely to wear off pretty quickly.
That is, unless one of your drunken friends ends up pregnant,
then the next playground will be there for the next generation to enjoy.
Now you can enjoy this segue to our sponsor. With all the buzz around the other cubic console,
the Steam Machine, we DIY'd one of our own and you guys should check it out to get an idea
of what kind of performance you can expect.