This is a list of the full color palettes for notable video game console hardware.
For color palettes of early 8-bit personal computers, see the List of 8-bit computer hardware palettes article.
For color palettes of 16-bit personal computers, see the List of 16-bit computer hardware palettes article.
For current RGB display systems for 32-bit and better PCs (Super VGA, etc.), see the 16-bit RGB for HighColor (thousands) and 24-bit RGB for TrueColor (millions of colors) modes.
For various software arrangements and sorts of colors, see the List of software palettes article.
For each unique palette, an image color test chart and sample image (Truecolor original follows) rendered with that palette (without dithering) are given. The test chart shows the full 8-bits, 256 levels of the red, green and blue (RGB) primary colors and cyan, magenta and yellow complementary colors, along with a full 8-bits, 256 levels grayscale. Gradients of RGB intermediate colors (orange, lime green, sea green, sky blue, violet and fucsia), and a full hue's spectrum are also present. Color charts are not gamma corrected.
These elements permit study of the color depth and distribution of the full colors of any given palette, and the sample image indicates how the full color selection of such palettes would represent real life images. These images are not necessarily representative of how the image would be displayed on the original graphics hardware, as the hardware may have additional limitations regarding the maximum display resolution, pixel aspect ratio and color placement.
For specific models of videogame consoles, simulations of how the sample image would render in different graphic modes are provided, if available. These simulations are always up to the maximum vertical resolution of the given graphic mode or up to 200 scan lines, if vertical resolution is greater. So any of them could be properly padded, transcoded and dumped into the original hardware and/or software emulators without any other changes.
The sample images only try to show how a certain system is able to handle to an image in terms of color without improvements nor additional clever tricks of design like anti-aliasing or dithering. Doubtlessly a human artist is able to improve enormously the look of the simulated images to approximate them to the original one, but that is not the goal of this article.
Note: please do not change the compression scheme of every image by a lossy compression scheme (i.e. JPEG) in order to improve their file size, nor change the thumbnail size of the images, nor gamma-correct them. They are didactical material AS IS, and they have been already optimized for this purpose.
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—Leontine Young (20th century)
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