Is .NET Relevant to Game Developers?

andrew stuart asks: "We've heard an awful lot about how .NET is the future and how .NET signals the end for COM based Windows development, but how far does this go? Is it really the end of COM? Will ALL Windows programming be done with .NET? What about games development? Will games be developed with .NET? If games aren't developed with .NET and Microsoft is killing COM, then what future for games development on Windows? Will there be DirectX for .NET?"