Well, this is unexpected.

Engadget HD is reporting — and other sites are corroborating — the arrival of a multi-region Blu-ray player.

Which is to say, a machine that can be told to play any disc from anywhere in the world. You can set it to “Region 0” for standard DVDs, and a simple keypad hack will switch its BD configuration to Region A, B or C, and back again, when required.

This is a very good thing. There are plenty of Blu-ray discs available in the UK and Europe (which is Region B, to North America’s Region A) that have tempted me on my trips overseas … and which I’ve had to leave on the shelves due to the inflexibility of the PlayStation 3, which not only can’t be hacked but refuses to play region-free material if it’s encoded in PAL. That seems kind of dickish on the part of Sony’s engineers.

At just $349.99 USD, the Momitsu seems like a very good solution. It’ll replace the region-free Philips upconverter I’ve been using to play European and Australian discs, and add international BD functionality, letting me do my part in stimulating the global economy by snapping up a few Region B discs from various sources.

Sure, “Almost Famous” will make it to BD in North America eventually, but let’s be real; Paramount’s never going to bother with “Son of Rambow“, and there’s no way something like this is ever going to make it over here, either. So it’s a no-brainer.