1989: The Year the Game Boy Arrived and a Home Cost $125,000

Shane Hewitt and The Nightshift · Apr 24, 2026 · 8m

Throwback Thursday lands in 1989, and the gap between then and now is either comforting or devastating depending on what you look at first. The Game Boy launched. The Canadian Space Agency was officially created. And the average Canadian home cost $125,000.

Brian Mulroney was at a NATO summit in 1989. H.W. Bush was in the White House. The conversation around who owes what to whom sounds familiar. Meanwhile, road trips still ran on license plate bingo and counting Volkswagen bugs out the window, at least until that Game Boy showed up bundled with Tetris and changed the back seat permanently…