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

As a poster mentioned, XNA is currently limited to Microsoft platforms but you can still use C#, .NET and any .NET programming languages to develop games in a cross-platform way.

The Mono runtime does provide a cross-platform engine that can be used to run your C# (or .NET code) under a variety of desktop platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux) as well as gaming consoles (Wii supported by Novell, PS3 coming soon and Xbox360 "on your own").

There is also a commercial gaming platform called Unity3D that has done wonders using Mono. They are a game IDE that surpasses XNA as a game development environment: physics, graphics, lights, models, collisions are handled all in native C++ code while all of the gaming logic (AI, camera control, views and so on) are handled by managed code written typically in C# or UnityScript (a strongly typed Javascript implementation that gives you the best of both world: the Javascript syntax, but strong types that improve performance).