The son of one of my cow-orkers is having a devil of a time getting a job in the game industry because the school he went to taught the programming curriculum in Java.
He's screwed, near as I can tell, unless he can find at least half a year to sit down and learn C / C++.
Not to sound like an ass, but getting a good programming job in the game industry is hard enough as it is. After all, the supply-demand ratio for these jobs is much lower than it is elsewhere in the IT industry. I would advise him to get another programming job first, learn some C/C++ in his free time, and then start looking for jobs in the game industry.
As a counterpoint, there are a lot of game programming positions open everywhere, and studios are having a real hard time filling them. Yes, there is more competition than non-games roles, but programmers are still programmers - valuable and rare.
If he's a good programmer he shouldn't give up. If he's job hunting, tell him to spend a good two weeks learning C++ and build a couple of dummy programs, then start applying for roles and continue to work on his C++ in the background. It'll come.
Any mobile platform will do. J2ME is still bundled in most dumbphones and it isn't too hard to move from Java to C# and address WP7. I gather Microsoft will do anything to get people started.
He's screwed, near as I can tell, unless he can find at least half a year to sit down and learn C / C++.