Epic joins Khronos as focus shifts to mobiles

Engine and software giant Epic has joined industry consortium Khronos, both groups have announced.

The Khronos Group is an industry consortium with a collective interest in the creation of API standards, such as OpenGL and OpenGL ES.

As a member of Khronos’ board of promoters, Epic now has significant sway in determining the evolutionary path of graphics standards on key platforms including mobiles.

Khronos president Neil Trevett, who also acts as VP of mobile content at Nvidia, said that Epic would bring “enormous insight into the evolution of the OpenGL and OpenGL ES specifications that will benefit the entire industry.”

Epic recently announced that it would be releasing a mobile version of its Unreal Engine 3, which is able to work on devices such as the iPhone.

In joining Khronos, the Gears of War creators are in the company of the likes of Apple, id Software, Sony, AMD and Nvidia.

Speaking of the move, Epic VP Mark Rein said the firm’s goal is to “ensure that the functionality essential to bringing rich experiences to mobile users is enabled on both the hardware and software side of modern devices and platforms.”