Well it came out in North America in September 2002. The GameCube one came out almost a year before in Japan, in December 2001. But even before that, there was one for the N64 in Japan which came out in April 2001 (the reason it was quickly made into a GCN game was because the N64 was at the end of its life and the GCN was out... kind of like how LoZ:TP came out for the Wii. However, for AC... the N64 and GCN games had more differences).
It didn't come out in Australia until October 2003 and Europe until September 2004. These games were actually just the same as the American one. Those guys weren't that happy for having to wait so long =p