@TheAdza
The Australia and New Zealand markets are classed as part of Europe by the big three. Nintendo Europe is based in Germany, which is likely why there's a currency exchange fee charged.
For 3DS eShop, I'd recommend doing what I do and change your profile location to Ireland so you can get the games cheaper.

Eh. Cheaper to import from the UK anyway. I'll likely just grab it from OzGameShop or Amazon, as usual.

It got a release in Australia, which uses British English spelling. Don't think this is the reason for the delay, to be honest.

Anyone in the UK desperate for a copy might get lucky if they can find an Australian website that'll ship.

Probably is language-related, as the game was released here in Australia in December (pretty sure it was December...), and Aus is generally regarded as part of Europe by the three hardware manufacturers--to the extent that Animal Crossings seasonal weather reflects that of the northern hemisphere.
Still, it baffles me that they'd go to the extent of recalling the already-shipped stock instead of firing out a patch.

Nice one. I'd been connecting to the Irish eShop for retail downloads at $15 less than they are one the Oz store. Might be a thing of the past.

@ChunkyDroid
I had no problems with Mario Chase today. Did you download the initial update for the game?

The Miiverse stuff is what has impressed me most so far. It really does change everything. Gaming becomes a truly social pastime, even while playing alone. I've lost count of the amount of times I've found something really cool in a game and had no-one to share it with.
Posting screenshots, drawings and messages and seeing what others have put up there feels to me like something I was missing without even realizing it.

Gonna have to see if my EB store can price match Big W or K-Mart's prices.
Only 12 and a bit hours to go!!!

Remember folks, this is the first week of the console's life: hell, it hasn't even launched here in Australia yet, let alone Europe and Japan! It'll take them time to build up the featureset and iron out the bugs. Nintendo have been haemorraging cash this year, and no doubt they're keenly aware of the fact that things have to change in order for them to remain relevant.

The N64 was their last stand at competing in the console market with pure hardware horsepower. The 'Cube was somewhere between the PS2 and Xbox in terms of power, but they started to edge away from direct competition by not including a DVD player, and through the DS's various incarnations to the Wii and now Wii U, they're making it clear they want to explore other areas of game design.

Now, that doesn't excuse the silliness of some of their actions thus far, but we do have to step back a bit and take a look at what they're trying to accomplish. Message boards, Twitter and comments on blogs like this are (if Nintendo are even looking, which I hope to God they are) a good way to voice our concerns and offer up some feedback.

One thing that's really puzzling me, however--especially in light of the recent comments from the Metro: Last Light devs--is why Nintendo felt the need to limit the power consumption of the CPU to the extent that ports are difficult to optimise. I for one am not in the least bit fussed about how much electricity the Wii U sucks up, because I'm the guy who turns on his phat model 360 in the winter to heat up my bedroom...

@Kirk
There are a lot of power adapters required for this thing, but to be honest, I much prefer being able to use an external HDD for eShop titles. Way easier to upgrade storage than it is on the 360 (which is a crazy expensive process) and PS3 (limited to 2.5" drives). I may just test out a single-cable USB drive and see how that runs--once the bloody Wii U comes out here, that is...

I agree that the way Nintendo has tackled the online infrastructure is pretty fractured and infuriating. My hope is they'll listen to the many complaints people have about not linking purchases to user IDs (Apple have a great setup that allows just that) and locking everything to hardware, and actually do some catching up to make the Nintendo Network a bit more user-friendly. This week's Giant Bomb podcast features an exhaustive talk about the pitfalls of the approach Nintendo have taken.

This is a giant leap for the company, though. They just need to take some time to listen to their user base, then go back and patch up the baby steps they missed in their rush to embrace the interwebs.

So Scribblenauts is delayed for Australia, too? Sucks. Preordered it for my girlfriend, cos she loved the iPad version.

I played the first on 360, second on PS3, so I may as well play the third on Wii U. Seems fair.

https://www.ebgames.com.au/wiiu-159832-Wii-U-Controller---SNES-Version-Wii-U

Which in turn looks like a Dreamcast controller. Nice try.