Unacceptably high? It's a consumer tolerance level, directed bottom up outside of errors or miraculous and efficient design. It's not a standard really, it's an average failure rate crossing many fields of devices. You could potentially engineer things to be nigh everlasting, but are you ready to drop 2k monies or even more on a cell phone that lasts forever when most people get a new one in a year or two anyway?
Nintendo is a stand out in this case because they are top performers both in regard to reliability and price. The PS3 is probably Sony's most reliable gaming platform yet. And that is somewhat sad for them, honestly.
Thanks @skaar for taking a break from moderating pony pics to make me laugh my ass off.