Capcom's upcoming Lost Planet is a graphic tour de force, made possible by a brand new iteration of Capcom's own proprietary engine, the MT Framework 2.0.  Capcom recently revealed why they decided to upgrade the engine, and how the MT Framework 2.0 engine improves upon it's predecessor.

The decision to upgrade the MT Framework 2.0 engine was made in January 2008, and work started on the engine started with only 2 people programming it.  In fact, Lost Planet 2 started life as a MT FW 1 game, but was halted early on and switched to 2.0.  Some assets of Lost Planet 2 are still from the prior engine, however, the game will make use of several features new to the updated engine.  One such feature that Capcom mentions in specific is the vegetation, which will sway in the wind and in the wake of bullets and explosions.

Capcom had a plethora of reasons to upgrade the engine.  First, the existing engine was made primarily with the 360 and PC hardware in mind.  The PlayStation 3 didn't come out until after the engine was developed, and as a result, porting projects back and forth to the PS3 was more complicated.  This could be the reason why the PS3 version of Lost Planet is such a lousy port, and also why Dead Rising was never ported, as both games ran on early versions of the original MT Framework engine.  Regardless, MT Framework 2.0 will allow Capcom to provide much better support for the PS3, and as a result, all products made on the new engine will be much more equal across the board.

The original MT Framework engine was designed explicitly for internal use in Capcom.  Capcom received requests from other developers to use the engine externally, which also played a factor when deciding to retool the engine.  While Capcom said they weren't looking to specifically enter the engine development business, a la Epic and the Unreal Engine, it does plan on licensing out the 2.0 engine to other Japanese developers.

There is a lot more techno babel in the original Japanese article, and if you're into that stuff, it's worth taking a look at the GameWatch article.