The eagle-eyes at Ars Technica report that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has approved Microsoft’s application for a way to censor profane or inappropriate language.

This is great news for anyone who has put up with one too many f-bombs, or any racial/ethnic/sexual slurs at all for that matter, while trying to enjoy a game of Halo or Gears of War.

According to the patent, the invention would process incoming audio, compare the words in the audio to an index of “undesired speech” and, based on the probability of a match, censor the audio to a point where it’s “substantially no longer perceivable by a listening audience.” Better still, the probability threshold improves dynamically to improve performance down the line.

Ars Technica also points out that this technology could be used for live television applications, possibly eliminating the need for a tape delay, or at least saving producers the stress of hovering over a “bleep” button.

Let’s hope something gets developed for the Xbox 360 soon, and for the sake of our Playstation 3 owners, gets offered or developed for Sony’s console as well. Better yet would be a technology to record incidents of foul language so that bigots could be wiped from online gaming outright.

[Via Joystiq]

Previously, this option was only available in beta to premium members of the XNA Creators Club, an exclusive group for the homebrew developers. Microsoft plans to bring the service out of beta along with the new Xbox Live.

This is no free ride for consumers, though. XBL Director of Programming Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb inteviewed XNA Community Manager Kathleen Sanders on the topic, and they were sort of quiet on the factoid that you’ll have to pay for these games, so we’ll post Sanders’ quote right here:

“They have an idea, they have the energy and the willpower to do it, they can go and create it, put it through peer review, and then it’s up on Community Games for you to buy,” Sanders said.

To be fair, developers are going to make some money off of this, or at least recoup some of the $99 they spent on the development software. More specifically, they get 70 percent of the revenues, or 40 percent to 60 percent while the game is being promoted as a feature title. Games will cost between 200 and 800 Microsoft Points to download, according to Joystiq.

Hyrb has previously detailed some of the new organizational features of “The New Xbox Live Experience,” so hopefully we’ll also get some robust measures to sift through the inevitable amount of crap that will be available.

The early 90’s PC realtime strategy game cast players as the executive of a major corporation in a cyberpunk-style world, forcing them down a road of questionable moral decisions. Using a team of four cyborg agents, players assassinated rival execs, rescued allies, killed enemy agents and pushed the company’s brand on civilians and scientists. All the while, the corporation researched new weapons and technology with the tax dollars of conquered territories. The action unfolded through a cold, isometric viewpoint.

An expansion pack, called Syndicate Wars, was released in 1996 for PC and Playstation.

Whoever was talking to CVG didn’t reveal much else. The news site is thinking that developer Starbreeze (The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, The Darkness) might be tapped for the title, as they’ve signed with EA to reinvent an unnamed classic game. But earlier this year, legendary game designer Peter Molyneux, who produced the original game, told Shacknews that he “would love to redo a version of Syndicate.”

Given solid track record of Molyneux and Starbreeze, we’d love to have either of them on board.

Kotaku, which reported Aykroyd’s comment, ran with a rumor last week that Atari would publish the game, so they’re hoping this is a confirmation of sorts, not just an idea Aykroyd got from … Kotaku.

If you haven’t been following the saga, big-time publisher Activision dropped the project in July, along with eight other games, as a way of streamlining operations. Given the sloppy track-record of movie-to-game adaptations, this wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but gamers were optimistic because Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were writing the story, and the entire Ghostbusters team except Rick Moranis were going to provide voice talent.

The game was in development for most gaming platforms. Players would control a rookie member of the squad, accompanying the veterans through events that occur after Ghostbusters II. Action was standard proton pack blasting. The game had already been well-hyped and previewed — with hands-on time against Stay Puft Marshmallow Man — when Activision pulled the plug.

We find it hard to believe that a game with such huge selling potential won’t get made, but of course, it’s a question of when.