{"id":682005,"date":"2026-03-26T01:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/682005\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T01:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:22:12","slug":"ram-crisis-forces-nex-to-raise-price-on-playground-kids-console","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/682005\/","title":{"rendered":"RAM Crisis Forces Nex To Raise Price On Playground Kids Console"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nex Playground, a kid-focused motion-control console that exploded in popularity last year, is the latest bit of video game tech to announce a price increase directly connected to the ongoing RAM shortage<\/a> caused by AI hyperscalers rushing to build data centers.<\/p>\n

On March 25, in an open letter posted online<\/a>, Nex CEO and co-founder David Lee announced that starting next month, the company\u2019s flagship console, the Nex Playground, will receive a $50 price increase, bumping the price from $250 to $300. This is the second price increase<\/a> in less than two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know this isn\u2019t welcome news, and this is not a change we take lightly,\u201d said Lee in his post on the official Nex website. He also directly laid the blame for the price increase on the RAM crisis affecting tech products around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past six months, the cost of key components \u2014 especially memory (DDR) and storage (eMMC) \u2014 has risen significantly across the industry,\u201d said Lee. \u201cThese increases are driven in part by the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, which is reshaping global supply and demand for these parts. You may have seen reports about the broader memory shortage. Like many consumer electronics companies, we\u2019ve worked hard to absorb these cost increases for as long as possible. However, at current levels, it\u2019s no longer something we can sustainably carry on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Playground\u2019s price increase will kick in on April 1. The company isn\u2019t raising the price on its Game Pass-like subscription service. Lee says the company is \u201ctruly sorry\u201d that this price bump might make the console \u201cless accessible for some families.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the NEX Playground, and why is it getting a price increase? <\/p>\n

The Nex Playground features no physical controls. Instead, like with an Xbox Kinect, players interact with games and menus using their bodies. The console launched in 2023 and cost $200. Sales were slow at first, but during the holiday shopping season in 2024<\/a>, the device went viral thanks to TikTok and online creators. This led to it selling out and a price increase in 2025 to $250. Last year, the Nex Playground outsold the PS5 and Xbox<\/a> during a short period of time. Nex says it has sold around 1 million units<\/a> of the device since launch.<\/p>\n

The ongoing RAM crisis has made it harder and harder for companies to secure the parts needed to build game consoles, computers, and other tech devices. One PC parts maker called 2026 the \u201cmost challenging year\u201d in its history due to the shortage.<\/p>\n

This is all largely thanks to AI hyperscalers and tech giants gobbling up PC parts to build datacenters.<\/a> It\u2019s become quite pricey and challenging<\/a>\u00a0for your average person to buy PC RAM, graphics cards, or even an SSD for a console. Even the prices on prebuilt PCs from companies like HP, Dell, and Asus will increase by 15 to 20 percent,\u00a0according to\u00a0PC World.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nex Playground, a kid-focused motion-control console that exploded in popularity last year, is the latest bit of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":682006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[286622,85529,90726,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-682005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-nex-playground","tag-price-increase","tag-ram","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116292861989262635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}