With its shares dropping 70% in the past year, Sony Corp. announced that it will lay off about 4% of its 186,000-strong workforce (8,000 employees), an additional 8,000 contract employees, cut back on investments by 30%, close several of its overseas manufacturing plants, and pull out of businesses as it is looking to cut $1.1 billion in costs by March 2010. It was not clear whether the games division will be affected, but judging by the large amount of cutbacks, it's hard to imagine that it would not be involved.