The other thing too is, he's going for a simplistic definition of flipping.
Somebody who can repair these consoles has to buy them in order for them to get back into the general game-playing public's hands. Most gamers can't repair these consoles which need full capacitor replacement, and possible CD laser replacement in the worst cases, so unless somebody comes along who has all the skills needed, most of the public will not buy broken merchandise obviously...
That's not quite the flipping of snatching up working items, hording them, and waiting for low supply to drive prices upwards, then reselling when going's hot, etc. A firmer definition of "flipping" is with the negative connotations of max gouging/profiteering. Every seller (well, most, in principle) you see on eBay bought the item lower somewhere, from the manufacturer or somebody else, and is effectively reselling/flipping. But are their markups reasonable/respectable is the thing (which is all relative to your judgement) ?
