Viability of C#/.NET as the new standard game dev platform?

Question

For a long time now C++ has been the dominate game development language. Many AAA quality 3D engines are available to fit any budget.

My question is, with the rise of X

Answer 1

I think that there is a kind of BS elitism that happens when people talk about XNA or java game frameworks or pygame or whatever. Yes, professional game houses will use C++ for a long, long time. But Atmospherian is asking about something for his own project, so I'm going to assume that he's an amateur (if he were the CEO of Epic or something I doubt he'd be posting on SO)

Anyway, just because you couldn't code FarCry in it doesn't mean that it's a worthless framework. Major-studio level games require millions of dollars and dozens of people, but XNA/Java/pygame/etc have allowed amateurs to do some pretty awesome stuff. Amateur games and major-studio games are two different beasts and call for two different sets of tools.

To answer your questions, Atmospherian:

-Yes, XNA can do some pretty cool stuff and people have used it to make some cool games.

-If you want XNA to be cross platform and work with mono, I think it's technically possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

-If you want to end up with a job in the games industry, you are going to need to learn C++.

-I think the path of least resistance to getting a working cross-platform game engine is currently in pyglet. The ease of use might trade off with speed when compared with java or C++.