20-30 million is quite high, actually. If you assume that's the number of rebuys due to failure, that puts the failure rate at 20% - 30%. No way.
Edit: Being harsh on the PS2, we'll assume a 10% failure rate. That gives 11 million rebuys, for a total of 109 million consoles sold. I seriously doubt the failure rate was 10%, but even if it is, the news isn't nearly so bad as you say it is.