Sega have announced that Sonic Heroes is to ship early...

...well, at least in America. But not only will it ship early on January 5th but it will ship for the Nintendo Gamecube ONLY on this date! A full three weeks before the January 27th Stateside release on the Xbox and Playstation 2.

Sega have not announced whether or not this will affect the European release and bring it earlier than the February 20th release date, but it would be a very nice surprise if it did.

It looks set to be a busy year for Sega, with at least three new Sonic games confirmed for the Nintendo systems expected to ship in the first half of 2004.