I think that, while C++ may be
slightly higher-performance, any performance increases are offset by the time it would take Mojang to port it. If Mojang simply spent time working out bugs in the regular Java-based Minecraft and made it a bit leaner and less CPU-Intensive, then the game would run far better than if they wasted time on an unneeded fundamental change in the code. Porting it to any C language would take ages and is almost entirely pointless.
Second point. It would render unusable many of the mods out there today. If Mojang suddenly decided to switch to C++, the community would be without working mods (at least good ones) for weeks, even months.
AzieFor those of you that didn't know, MC 360 was coded in C#.
The average Xbox has somewhere around 500MB graphical memory (which isn't a lot) and typical players get 60 frames while playing. This laptop has 300MB of graphical memory and gets 5-10 frames on a good day.
Just one example of how much more optimized Minecraft could be if it wasn't coded in Java.
That has more to do with the Xbox environment than the actual language. The nature of Xbox is that it has very few background processes, which allows it to run more costly games without trouble. A computer has tons of things going on behind the scenes, so it runs slower.
