Ten Ton Hammer follows up on release plans for LEGO Universe, the LEGO-themed MMORPG that was announced with a Q4 2008 release date. A quick check of the calendar shows the game has suffered a delay from that plan, and the hammer-wielders spoke with Mark Hansen of LEGO, who indicates the toy maker is in control of the game's release schedule:

The decision has been made within the company to wait to launch [LEGO Universe]. We're trying to align the physical play with the virtual play. We never know what products are going to be "hitting" or not, and we actually have a lot of products that are out there right now that are "hitting." We want to get the feel of LEGO into this game to match those products. We also don't want to detract from those products that are out there that are doing very well.

A lot of our decisions have been focused around what we're going to gain and what we're going to lose by holding this game back. We don't know how long we're going to delay the launch of [LEGO Universe], so I can't tell you anything specific on that. But we can say that it is going to be a delay of some time. Not a long period of time, but we don't know exactly how much.