Yeah I have Game Pass so I was pretty keen to play the early access but when I found out it was $170, just to play 5 days earlier? No fucking thank you.
I'm spending that money on an SSD because my partner bought the deluxe version and running it on my computer is arse. My computer isn't even that bad!
There's a lot that goes into an Australian release. Shipping all those bits to the bottom of the world is outrageously expensive. All of the map geometry has to be altered to be right-side up there. The physics math has to be re-coded to deal with -1g gravity. Somebody has to be paid to go through all of the scripts to replace every instance of "jelly" with "marmite". Asset loading code has to be changed to compensate for the Coriolis effect.
All of this adds up to expensive Au ports, the new costs often overshadowing the title's original development costs.