Not really, capitalism is fine. This is people exploiting a system that is inherently broken. Exactly like ticket resellers/ticketmaster/etc. What companies should do, since these boxes have serials anyway, is tie the serial to the CC that people use to purchase it. The only way to unlock the serial is to either return it to the point of sale/sale company, which then notifies Sony that the serial is unlocked and it can be repurposed.
Similar to how NIN handled concerts awhile back when scalpers were being the cock-gobblers they are and kept making his concerts super expensive without the artist seeing the money. Each ticket was tied to a name, not a scannable number.
They should do the same for hardware sales, especially in cases like this. The serial gets tied to the name of the person who purchased it, and the only way to change it is to reach out to Sony directly and show proof of purchase and that you are transferring it. Similar to how Dell handles licenses for enterprise servers.
It's a little overhead, but I'm sure the people who don't want to deal with shitheels wouldn't mind not having to pay "middle man" prices that in no way benefits the company, only the assholes who only intend to resell.
Incidentally, paying the stores/seller's price vs. someone who is scalping is not winning, it's the system working as intended. Scalping/being a piece of shit is like anchor babies; clearly not intended.