Daily Briefing: Wednesday 22nd December

Over $6000 worth of games were apparently added to Xbox Game Pass this year

That's according to new calculations from outlet The Loadout which, suggest that the new games introduced to the Xbox Game Pass console and PC library were collectively worth $6,317.35. This final total was reached using the price of each game as listed on the Microsoft store as a baseline, and it certainly is a pretty impressive figure considering Xbox Game Pass Ultimate only costs like $15 a month.

• According to The Loadout's calculations, March was the most valuable month with $964.67 of new additions while April was the least, with only (ha) $330.91 worth of new games. Of course, this all sounds very much like fancy marketing speak for the power of Xbox Game Pass and the amount of value it actually the service actually has depends entirely on what each player individually gets out of the service. As with anything that the games industry, or any other industry for that matter, is trying to sell, you to you.

Embracer Group open their wallets again

Embracer Group have gained a bit of a reputation lately of being a Western equivalent of something like Tencent, in that they appear to just love buying things. This week saw them make a number of new additions to the portfolio, including entertainment publisher Dark Horse Media. This one is a bit different from the deals we're used to seeing from Embracer, but it marks a leap into cross-media as Embracer now have access to over 300 intellectual properties alongside Dark Horse's comics and television arms.

• In other Embracer dealings, the group also acquired 100% of the shares in Florida-based Shiver Entertainment. They're best known for taking over Scribblenauts Showdown after original developers 5th Cell stepped away from the franchise. They'll function as a subsidiary of Saber Interactive. As part of their pre-Christmas shopping spree, Embracer have agreed to acquire 100% of the shares in German streaming/vod channel Spotfilm Networx, which will serve as a subsidiary of Koch Media. None of the actual terms or values of these deals were disclosed, but we'll keep an eye out for how many millions changed hands there.

Nintendo warn of server congestion over the Christmas period

Nintendo of Japan's customer issued a warning this week advising new fans to create their Nintendo Accounts before this week so as to avoid possible server issues over the holiday period. Nintendo are obviously expecting an influx of new Nintendo Switch owners over the holidays and the idea of booting up your shiny new console only for the servers to laugh at you is grim.

• The original statement is obviously in Japanese but, thanks to the wobbly majesty of Google translate, we know it reads "this weekend, access will be concentrated on the server of #Nintendo Account, and it is expected that Nintendo Account will not be created immediately. If you are planning to use the Nintendo Switch family for the first time, we recommend that you create it in advance." So there you go, if you or anyone you know is gifting somebody else a Nintendo Switch this Christmas, be sure to set it up in advance. It should also give the console some time to download any updates it needs so things really will be good to go once the wrapping paper comes off.