When Howard Stringer took over at Sony four years ago, they charged him with a hefty task: revitalize the company and resuscitate the brand. He’s been struggling to do so ever since.

Today the New York Times reported the number Sony has put to Stringer’s troubles: $388 million. In the red.

Now it’s no secret that Sony has been struggling. They’re getting pmeled in the video game market and soundly beaten with just about every other product they meant to sell competitively. Sony’s bright light is that they’re a world class company and they’ve made their name on innovative products. They can come back from what’s really a mild slump in their massive sales.

Thing is, they need to turn things around yesterday. I can’t say if that means getting rid of Stringer but Sony needs to take advantage of the fact that everyone is struggling and use their massive resources to turn the brand around.

According to Sony CFO Nobuyuki Oneda, the cost of Sony’s Playstation 3 is still 10% higher than the price. In the US that means Sony is losing $40 on every PS3 they sell. It’s certainly no secret that consoles typically follow this pricing pattern on launch, but to still be losing after two and a half years is surprising.

Of course things could be worse. Just a year ago the cost-to-price ratio was an estimated $100 loss per system. Then again, the PS2 did just sell more units than the PS3 last month as a result of a PS2 price drop. Rumors suggest a similar cut could be coming to the PS3 which would set the cost-to-price rift back up to serious levels. So maybe things couldn’t be a whole lot worse. Hopefully Sony has something big in store for E3.