According to Nikkei News, the GameCube's online capabilities will be employed sooner than you may have expected. At least in Japan, the 56K modem and broadband adaptor will ship early next year. Sega's Phantasy Star Online Version 2 is now confirmed to use the GameCube online capabilities, and it will be available in March 2002. Here's the report from Nikkei:

OSAKA (Nikkei)--Nintendo Co. (7974) plans next year to make its new video-game machine, Nintendo GameCube, Internet accessible, company sources said Monday.

The company will release a modem attachment, which will be sold separately.

Along with Nintendo, Sega Corp. (7964) will also release game software for Nintendo's Net-compatible GameCube console.

Sega will release by March next year Phantasy Star Online, a roll-playing game software for GameCube that enables users to participate in a virtual world with other people connected via the Internet.

The Phantasy Star Online game developed for Sega's Dreamcast machine already has 300,000 members nationwide, the largest for any Internet game in Japan.

Nintendo will release GameCube, successor to the Nintendo 64 game machine, in September for the domestic market and in November in North America.

The company expects to ship 2.5 million units worldwide by the end of this year.

PlayStation 2, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s popular game console, is already Net accessible.