Ok, so my family's old DVD player died, and they're looking for something to replace it. Getting a PS3 for 250$ to fit the bill seems like a good deal, since it includes a Blueray player and, of course, the PS3 itself. Anyone have any input?

A new dvd player is less than $50 now. Don't get the PS3 for blue ray unless you actually know that you're going to use it.

You'll never be able to disable the DVD region lock. Might be a non-issue in the US, but here that crap made about 30 of my Europe-bought discs unplayable. F* sony.

Probably won't be an issue, since I've never had to deal with it before?

You can get a Bluray player for around half the price of a PS3 these days. If you're going to play PS3 games from time to time, by all means get one and use it as a DVD player, but if you're just going to watch films, I'd go with the standalone player.

Don't bother with a PS3 unless you are serious about buying or renting blu-rays and/or playing PS3 games. If you just want to play dvd's, just buy a cheap upconverting dvd player instead of a PS3.

If you intend on importing region locked dvd's, look online to see which models can have the region setting easily changed. If you don't plan on importing, any player will do.