c# XNA or c++ directX11 in the future? [closed]

Question

I have recently started to learn XNA, and quite enjoy it and it's managed code. However, after doing some reading it seems that for windows 8 and windows 8 phones XNA will not be updated to work with these new features, and that Directx11 will be what's used.

So, does anyone know if this is true? I do not know any c++, but i'm fairly confident with c#, so i would like to stick with XNA but if the future will be using c++ and Directx maybe i should switch over now? Also how much harder is c++ to learn if i know c#?

if the case is that directX is the way of the future, i might just go with unity so i can keep using c#.

Any help with this topic is greatly appreciated, thanks a ton

Answer 1

At last year's Build conference and other venues, MS's Herb Sutter spoke about it like this (paraphrased):

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Over the last decade, hardware got more powerful so quickly that we were able to afford the overhead of productive languages like .net. If we pushed the perf limits, so what, next years computers would handle it no sweat. the cost to make software in a managed language was less than native and we had the hardware power to mitigate the managed overhead.

In the coming decade, the hardware used to get things done is getting smaller, mobile, less powerful, more energy efficient. Suddenly code efficiency and performance in the software is increasingly more important. So far native has that edge.

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I guess since graphics software (games) can be a dev area that hits perf limits quickly, it is understandable that this might be one of the first to undergo this shift.