Alright, so I just found out about this thing called XNA Game Studio. It's used to make community games for the Xbox. It comes with a beginners tutorial and such, but I think it would help to learn some C++ or C# to help make the game I want.

Where is a good place to learn C++ or C# to make a sprite based side scrolling game? What kind of books should I look out for?

I want something specifically for making games. Something that has easy to follow beginner tutorials.