Perhaps,is it just the preparation for the GBA games on WiiU...
Good point.... I've been having problems with the eShop here in the UK for the last couple of days. YouTube works fine, but that Nintendo Unleashed video in the eShop spends forever buffering and pausing.
In the Internet Browser, most pages work fine, but nintendo.co.uk is sluggish.
Edit: ignore me, everything seems to be working fine again.