If You Invested $1,000 In Sony Stock When PlayStation 2 Was Released, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

One of the largest gaming companies in the world is Sony Group. Corp (NASDAQ: SONY). The company is a technology giant operating in sectors such as smartphones, electronics, televisions and more. The release of the PlayStation console for the company forever made the company a household name to gamers.

What Happened: Sony’s PlayStation 2 remains the best-selling video game console of all time with more than 155 million copies sold in its lifetime. Over 1.5 billion PlayStation 2 games were sold to gamers around the world.

Sony has maintained a market share lead in the console wars over Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).

The company’s PlayStation 5 released in November 2020 became the fastest-selling PlayStation console of all time hitting the 10 million milestone on July 18, 249 days after release.

Sony reported 2.3 million PlayStation 5s were sold in the recent first quarter, ending the quarter with 10.1 million units sold.

Related Link: Could Sony Be Betting Heavier On Mobile Games? New Job Posting Suggests So

Investing $1,000: The PlayStation 2 was a massive hit for gamers. The company’s shares went on a run before the official release of the console with shares going from less than $30 to more than $150 from 1999 to 2000.

Investors who waited to invest in Sony stock when the PlayStation 2 console was released in North America did not fare as well.

Shares of Sony traded at $93 on October 26, 2000, when the PlayStation 2 was released in North America.

A $1,000 investment could have bought 10.75 SONY shares at the time of the console release.

Based on a share price of $102.78 for Sony today, those 10.75 shares would now be worth $1,104.89.

This represents a return of 10.5% or around 1% average annually over the last 10 to 11 years.

Instead of purchasing the stock, an investor might have done better buying Playstation 2s, holding onto them to resell now to collectors after they went out of manufacture.