Not content to merely enter the development portion of our precious video game supply chain, Google is getting into distribution and advertising.

The corporate supergiant already sells music through its YouTube service, and they plan to add video games as well. Videos will come with links to Amazon.com so you can immediately impulse buy any game whose video impresses you.

Google AdSense is also being expanded so that flash games will be able query remote ad servers at designated points during gameplay. You may not see interstitials right away, but don’t be surprised if small underfunded indie games occasionally need to take a short break for a cool, refreshing Coke.

Not content to mine old content from two or more generations ago, Nintendo has added part of the Gamecube’s lineup to the list of games that will give your wallet Déjà vu. It sounds ridiculous to buy $10 Ebay games at retail, especially since the Wii is already backward compatible with the Gamecube, but Nintendo is justifying the purchase by retrofitting the games with gestural controls. With that in mind, most of the list makes sense:

• Chibi Robo
• Mario Tennis
• Metroid Prime
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
• Pikmin
• Pikmin 2

When the Wii first announced, many gamers’ first thoughts were of how to improve existing games with motion controls. If the Nintendo sees success with these games at the expected $35 mark, your fanboy dreams may just come true.

Nintendo’s Tokyo press conference revealed quite a bit of news from the usually tight-lipped company, but the DS hardware update, the DSi, has dominated the industry chatter. Unfortunately for Nintendo, not much of it has been positive.

The new device will feature a 0.3 megapixel camera, a bigger screen, the ability to play AAC files, and a new SD slot to load those files up. The SD card will also function as a storage device for a new download service that will bring digital distribution to the handheld. Heck, slap telecommunications in there and it’s a cheap iPhone.

All the new functionality occupies space, though, and the GBA slot has been removed to make room. Fans of Guitar Hero: On Tour and backwards-compatible gaming at large will be disappointed by the loss. The price of entry has risen as well, and the whole package is being promised to Japan at the equivalent of $180, just $70 cheaper than a Wii.

Investors were not impressed by Nintendo’s announcement, and the company’s stock dropped by nearly 9% after the announcement. Adding to these troubles, developer Martyn Brown criticized the SD slot, warning that it would make the device more susceptible to piracy.

The handheld is scheduled to appear sometime in late 2009. With all the criticism flying around, Nintendo will be burdened with either changing the handheld or trying to demonstrate its worth.

The Shack is reporting that SquareEnix’s next entry into the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series is picking up the ball that the first game dropped.

Fans of the original game (and bitter near-fans who never got to play) will recall that Crystal Chronicles was a part of the Gamecube’s big push for inter-system connectivity. The game could support up to four players, each connecting a Game Boy Advance to the Gamecube as a controller. The small screen provided unique information to each player as a means of facilitating social interaction while gaming. Unfortunately, the combined price of four handhelds, a console, the necessary cables, and the game ultimately represented an insurmountable barrier for many gamers, Crystal Chronicles was less than a stellar hit.

The new Crystal Chronicles, Echoes of time, will be released as identical games both for the Wii and DS. So, instead of requiring a handheld to control the game in multiplayer mode, players will have the option of playing the full game with whatever platform is available. Since the Wii’s gestural controls are analogous to the DS’s touch controls, the two versions of the game are expected to control similarly. Detractors who have historically said that the Wii is little more than two Gamecubes taped together will probably take the DS-limited graphics as free ammunition, but everyone who doesn’t have a heart of flint should appreciate the flexibility afforded to players.

Now if only they’d figured this out an entire console generation ago.