Yea, while some of us may well love Sony, the way they operate a company simply isn't the best when it comes to finances.

One area I think they need to generate more revenue is through Playstation Plus. By providing a service such as this as well as free online for the entirety of the PS3, Sony has sort of screwed themselves out of being able to charge just to play online as Microsoft does (I truly think they would lose a lot of business if they would do this, as well as a lot of people dropping Playstation Plus since they don't want to pay for both). That being the case, Sony needs to continue providing excellent content for Playstation Plus, as well as continue providing additional services to Playstation Plus customers only in order to attract more customers and (at least hopefully) make more money off of it.

As others have indicated, Sony also needs to stop acquiring game studios and potentially even sell off some of the studios that they have. Is it awesome to have exclusive titles for the Playstation 3? Sure it is, but a company cannot continue losing millions of dollars just to say they have certain exclusive titles.

It isn't just gaming that is an issue, however. Sony needs to provide TV's at a more competitive rate. Maybe their TV's are better than the competitors, but I know for sure I don't want to pay 50% more for a Sony TV.

Sony needs to provide computers at a more competitive rate. You won't hear me say Sony computers suck (because I truly do believe they are very reliable pieces of equipment), but once again, they are not sold at a particularly competitive rate in my opinion. Sony simply doesn't get even close to comparing in price when compared to a similar build HP, Dell, or Toshiba (Granted I don't think too highly of HP or Dell).

And for crying out loud, please don't release another console that costs considerably more to make than you sell it for. If this means cutting back some on the internal hardware, so be it. Nintendo sure doesn't seem to have any issues selling a console that has much less powerful guts inside of it.

Some of you guys may well not agree with what I have to say here, but the plain and simple truth is that Sony needs to change, or they are going to have some major issues in the near future.

That is so unbelievable to read.  Microsoft's revenue last quarter was more than that.  It's crazy to think that this was the 800 lb gorilla that knocked Sega out of the hardware business with bags of Scrooge McDuck's loose change ...

MS have always implied that in order to offer a good quality online service, it needs to cost money. This is simply not so, Steam is the perfect example.

I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate... All services cost money, the key is who pays that money.

Now I can't testify to the accuracy of it, but there was a report in 2009 that said publishers had to pay up to ~16 cents per Gigabyte of their content that was downloaded on PSN, so obviously it has cost, difference is who pays that cost.

Meanwhile Nintendo has 14 billion in the bank. I never thought Nintendo's bank account would be more valuable than Sony.

For end user. Steam does not cost money for the end user (besides purchases, obviously). Of course someone has to pay it, I know that its not for free...

The exact same person pays the cost, so this is blatantly wrong.  In both cases, the cost is paid by the customer.

Blatantly wrong? It's not like any publisher has asked me to pay them if I download their demo on PSN.

Calling something blatantly wrong does not make it so, so try to provide a actual argument for your claim or stop talking nonsense.

Customers pay for something whether they realize it or not.  If a company does not pass on its costs to the customers, then the company loses money and eventually goes out of business.

A lot of people have an incredibly difficult time understanding this and seem to think that companies bear certain costs, but they don't.  The cost of a product is a result of what the company determines it needs to cover its own costs (in this case the downloading fees) as well as a premium so the company can make a profit.

Actually, stocks are a strong indicator of a company's current status. Why? Because people buy stocks based on a company's current status and it's current direction. They invest if they think that it's going to have a strong season, and they sell their stocks if they think it's going to be weak. If a company makes a strong profit, people rush to buy the stocks. If a company loses a lot of money, people try to sell their stock as quickly as they can.

In other words, stock price is a good barometer of company status because investors pay attention to that status and react accordingly. What it's not is a good barometer of where the company is actually going. This is because investors have only partial understanding of the market and the upcoming products. This is why Nintendo's stock only started going up after the hype built up, and why it has been declining recently despite the upcoming Wii U launch.

It is indeed silly to suggest that low stocks means Sony is about to die... but it does indicate that Sony is in dire straits. They need a win, and they need it soon.