The PlayStation 5 was outsold by the NEX Playground, a plug-and-play motion-controlled console, for one week. After getting off to a bit of a rocky start in 2020, Sony’s flagship console has consistently sat toward the top of the console sales charts in the years since, often battling with the Nintendo Switch for the top spot. For a brief moment in November, though, the PlayStation 5 lost its place to a device not made by one of its biggest competitors.
Overall, it’s been a big year for the PS5. The console celebrated its fifth anniversary and drew ever closer to passing the PS3’s lifetime sales numbers. By June, the PS5 had sold over 80 million units globally, pulling it within half of the legendary PS2’s lifetime figure. Despite all of those impressive achievements, the console has still faced stiff competition, and in at least one instance, that competition has come from an unexpected place.
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The NEX Playground Outsold the PS5 for One Week in November
According to gaming analyst Mat Piscatella on Bluesky, the NEX Playground surpassed the PS5 to become the U.S.’s second-best-selling console for the week ending on November 22, 2025. Piscatella later told IGN that the NEX also stands as the fifth-best-selling platform in the U.S. for the year to date, falling directly behind the Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, and original Switch. While it may have only lasted for a week, it’s still a significant milestone for the NEX. The PS5 has sold more units than every Xbox console, so beating it, even if just for a moment, is no small feat, especially for a system without the name recognition of Nintendo or Microsoft.
The NEX Playground is a motion-controlled system similar to the Xbox Kinect in that it uses a camera to observe players’ movements and translate that motion into game inputs. PlayStation has also tried similar concepts in the past, with the EyeToy for the PS2 and the PlayStation Move controllers, which more closely resemble Wii remotes, for the PS3 and PS4. While both attempts managed to sell at least a couple of million units worldwide, neither has truly stood the test of time. Xbox’s camera-based motion control attachment was likewise discontinued, although the Kinect has gotten new games as recently as 2021. Unlike the Kinect or EyeToy, though, the NEX Playground is fully plug-and-play, so users don’t need to purchase another system or buy any additional games to use it.
Like the PS5, the NEX Playground isn’t exactly new. It came out in 2023, but it has only recently taken off enough to land among the giants of Xbox, Sony, and Nintendo. At a suggested retail price of roughly $250, it’s also far more affordable than the PS5, Switch 2, or Xbox Series X/S, which likely has helped it surge through the sales charts. However, its one-week rise was still not enough to take the top spot. That honor belongs to Nintendo with its latest console. Considering how the Switch 2 is Nintendo’s fastest-selling system in company history, that’s not a huge surprise, but momentarily beating the PS5 is a worthy feat in its own right.
It is interesting that the number one best-selling console of the week before Thanksgiving also supports motion controls, even if they’re not the main draw of the Switch 2. It’s unclear if this signals the potential for motion controls to make a broader comeback, or if the NEX Playground’s price point and kid-friendliness have helped it jump in popularity at a time of high costs. Whatever the case, Piscatella was impressed, saying this was the first time he had seen a plug-and-play system rank so high. Even if it loses the number two spot, as Piscatella expects it to finish the year closer to number five, it’s a testament that there’s room in the console market for players other than Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox.
