The NES had a palette of 64 colors. Someone, at some point in time, had to make the final call as to what these colors would be. (Given the end result, I suspect it was actually a committee.) Am I alone in wondering why this thing wasn't used for inspiration:

The NES color palette is very frustratingly limited, and I really can't imagine that it would have been that difficult to have more colors. Why not at least something like 4-bit hue, 3-bit luminosity, and 1-bit saturation? They threw away two bits, and a dozen of the remaining 64 colors.

When the NES first came out, though, I'm sure it seemed like they had more than plenty of colors.

Um... 1 bit saturation means two saturation values. It doesn't mean they have to be 100% and 0%. Since there is a hue value already reserved for gray colors, you can have 100% and 50%.

I know nothing about the hardware used to generate colors. Would it be unreasonable to use a different component that can calculate more hues? It doesn't really matter anyways. The number of hues was really a pretty minor point. What I was driving at was that I can't see how it could be that impractical to have more color options in general, especially since this is one of the few things a cartridge can't address with custom hardware.

It's all pretty moot anyways. We can't go back and change it, and we all know it was pretty spiffy for its time.

I like more how the green in Super Mario Bros. 3 is the same green used in Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and Ninja Turtles (well, there's different shades of green, but you know what I mean!)  I always thought that was the niftiest thing ever...