I am a budding game programmer trying to get into the industry programming for PS3, Xbox 360. The main problem I see is the need to demonstrate my skills to a potential employer, but without access to Dev kits for the PS3 or Xbox 360, doing this directly is impossible.
My question is, what is the best alternative way to show console developers my skills?
C++ programming in DirectX for Windows seems close to showing Xbox 360 programming skills, and C++ programming in OpenGL seems relatively close to showing PS3 programming skills. Unfortunately, it seems from web research as if both Xbox 360 and PS3 actually have their own propietary libraries, therefore seeming to make this not a 100% fruitful endeavor. This approach seems closest, but also most time consuming. Plus you're not actually making anything run on the console.
On the other hand, programming in XNA has the benefit that your games are actually on the console, though I get the impression that this is looked upon as not "the real deal" since it is just a wrapper around DirectX and uses C# instead of C++.
Does anyone have knowledge or experience from inside the industry so as to know what kind of game demos would be most useful to show to a potential employer? C++ in DirectX, OpenGL, XNA, Unreal Engine, Unity3d, Flash, etc etc etc? There are only so many hours in the day, and I'd love to know how to direct my efforts.
My gut feeling is that DirectX would be the best choice, as it seems closer to what is used on the Xbox 360, but if having a good demo in another language/engine is just as good, it would obviously be less time consuming to go another route.
Thanks in advance for your help and advice!