1989 in video gaming

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Events

The original Game Boy.

• Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards is won by Operation Wolf (8-bit) and Speedball (16-bit).

Notable releases

• October 3, Brøderbund releases the Prince of Persia game, the first in a series of games, noted for its advancements in animation.
• Bullfrog Productions releases Populous on June 5, 1989, which was one of the first commercially successful god games.
• Namco releases Winning Run.
• Maxis releases Will Wright's SimCity, the first of the "Sim" games and a revolutionary real-time software toy.
• Capcom releases Mega Man 2 in more countries.
• Tengen releases an unlicensed version of the Tetris video game, which is recalled after Nintendo sues Tengen.
• Wes Cherry writes Solitaire and Robert Donner writes Minesweeper, which are bundled with Microsoft Windows starting from version 3.
• Nintendo of America introduces Enix's Dragon Warrior franchise to North America.
• Techno Soft releases Herzog Zwei (Mega Drive/Genesis) in Japan, marking an important development in the real-time strategy genre.
• Psygnosis release Shadow of the Beast, demonstrating the capabilities of the Amiga and helping sales of the computer.
• Strategic Studies Group releases Warlords on December 6, 1989, which was one of the first fantasy turn-based strategy game.
• Nintendo releases the Zelda Game & Watch.

Hardware

• Atari Corp. releases the Lynx handheld console.
• Mattel, Inc. releases the Power Glove controller for the NES home console.
• Nintendo releases the Game Boy handheld console, first handheld with cartridges.
• NEC's PC-Engine released in North America as the TurboGrafx-16.
• Sega Mega Drive released in North America as the Sega Genesis.

Business

• Hasbro, Inc. acquires elements of Coleco Industries, Inc.
• Trinity Acquisition Corporation founded (renamed THQ in 1990)
• Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Tengen
  • Nintendo sues Tengen over the Tetris video game copyrights. Tengen loses and recalls all its Tetris games.
  • November - Nintendo sues Tengen over production of unlicensed Nintendo games. Tengen loses. (Tengen originally sued Nintendo on December 12, 1988 for antitrust violations.)
• Nintendo v. Camerica Ltd. Nintendo sues Camerica over patent violations of the Game Genie for the NES console. Camerica wins the suit.