Nintendo Game Boy
It’s kind of hard to fathom, here in 2022, just how incredibly exciting Nintendo’s Game Boy felt in 1989. Portable video games you could carry in your hand! (Maybe even your pocket, if you had particularly huge ones.) To a generation of kids newly turned on and tuned in thanks to the record-shattering success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, this was mind-blowing stuff.
No matter that it could only show four colors, all of them shades of pea green, or that its low-res 166×144 pixel LCD display blurred to high hell. Even if the Tetris craze left you scratching your head, the latest Mario game was exclusive to the thing. Game Boy was a must-have.
Only one problem for this ‘80s kid: It cost $90 that I did not have (about $216 in 2022 monies). Good thing for Santa! Don’t remember if I still believed in the guy, but I certainly believed that I needed a Game Boy, and that Christmas was about the only way I’d get one.
When my siblings and I rushed to open presents, I didn’t find a sleek new portable games system. Instead I found a surprisingly large, very heavy box. I don’t remember my exact reaction, but I’m certain my parents were enjoying the show as I sad-dogged my way through unwrapping it. I pulled off the lid, and…
It was a brick…nestled next to a shrinkwrapped box. The Game Boy! My parents got me good with the most basic trick in the book, but no matter. It was time to catch up with Mario in the strange new realm of Sarasaland. Those first four AA batteries didn’t even last through the evening. Which, given these things’ battery life, was perhaps not surprising.
Alexandra Hall, Senior Editor
