Elyoh said:Who sets the region prices, MS or the publisher? Kind of keen to know who makes all that extra money off those of us living down under 
All prices are set by publishers. Games on Demand (rather than XBLA or add-ons) is where the problem lies, because physical copies of new games cost $60 in the US and $99 in Australia and GoD prices follow retail. It gets worse, because by the time a retail game is $30 in the US, it is still $99 in Australia. Since XBL discounts are (almost always) a percentage, 50% off $30 is a pretty good deal, but when you see $15USD vs $50AUD it sucks.
The reason for high prices in New Zealand is because less games are sold so there are less on the second hand market. So the price for second hand remains high, and so there is no reason to reduce retail prices. That, and people don't use ebay in New Zealand.
As an example, an 18 month old game such as LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is $68NZD ($52USD) second hand from
EB Games (still $99 new). I bet you could find that game for under $20 in the US.
So when it was US $4.99 / AU $24.98 in last weeks XBL sale, despite costing 4 times as much in Australia, that was still a bloody good deal compared to the second hand price.
He's not a man. He's the holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse and returned with powers you can't imagine.