Iwata said it was gonna be available after the Nintendo Direct, right?

Yes! downloading now

Try the search function, it has a NES button when searching for software type.

Can already play it on my 3DS, but it's a great game, and for $0.30 I'll download nearly anything.

Too bad it's not for the 3ds...

I searched but still can't find it

@Lan I don't know about America, but here in Australia I just pressed on the eShop Exclusive Content button or whatever and it was on top of the list.

I can't find it either. US user here.

I'm in Europe and I'm playing right now. Worth everyone of my thirty cents. Did you try the NES button when looking for sofware? That worked for me. I can;t find the cave though. That's a real bummer..

Balloon Knot.

@Sjoerd I'm assuming The Cave will be out in the PAL regions tomorrow, when the normal eShop update is meant to happen.

I'm guessing us U.S. players cant get it just yet...

Is this available through the eShop or the Wii Shop Channel?

Also, is it playable on the GamePad?

Alright, it appears to have just gone up in the US eShop. I searched for "balloon" and it was at the top.

@Emaan eShop, and yes.

I hate how, in Europe, this is the slower version of the game - very noticable to me since I'm used to the faster 3DS version!

Just opened up the settings by accident... looks like for Wii U Virtual Console games we can configure the controls however we want.

I got it now!

35MB! Pretty big file.

First impressions:
I'm liking the simultaneous game pad & TV display. It makes sense to do it that way, and doesn't clutter up the menu with an unnecessary toggle.

Save points are an interesting addition. I haven't tested the Miiverse interaction yet, but I wonder if this will invalidate the high score postings mentioned in the Nintendo Direct? Couldn't someone just reload enough times to generate an artificially high score?

The ability to remap the buttons is a huge, and a very welcome VC improvement.

Unfortunately I am not totally enthused by the display on the game pad. The stretching of the image gives the game a smeared look, very similar to how DS games look on the 3DS when stretched. A quick look in the menu didn't show any option to show 1:1 scale, though there may be a way to control this when launching the title similar to DS games on the 3DS. If anyone figures it out, please post here.

Thankfully the up-scaling to the TV doesn't look as poor.

Really? That's a huge file considering the original game is probably only a few kb or so.