IMHO - if Sony keeps its price's at a premium, I think it will hurt the company further. Many manufacturers are competing from a quality standpoint. As I see it, Sony's trivially higher "quality" does not justify their high prices. At this moment, I'm looking forward to the Samsung and LG OLED TVs. Sony had a chance to enter the OLED TV market, but instead produced a way over-priced and way undersized OLED TV in the XEL-1 which was, obviously, a niche market product. I saw an XEL-1 in person, and while the picture was nice, it was underwhelming in size. Perhaps I would have been willing to pay $200 for it, but certainly not $2,400.
Back in the 90's, COMPAQ went through a similar premium pricing battle in the PC market. Along came cheap knock-off PCs that were easily just as good as the COMPAQ models, and down went COMPAQ. As I see it, what happened to COMPAQ is a valuable lesson for company's like Sony, however, Sony has yet to learn the lesson.
The last thing I'll rant about is that in my opinion, Howard Stringer is completely to blame for the current dire straits in which Sony finds itself. I think he should divorce himself from Sony entirely. It was Stringer who gutted the TV division, and ditched another great product line in the "ES" series. Those cuts, IMHO, are why Sony is no longer a technology leader. It sounds like this new guy has some sense in trying to restore Sony to the status of a technological leader, however, these job cuts worry me in that it sounds like something Stringer would have done.
I wish Sony well, but time will tell.