I was talking about 8-bit homecomputers (like Amstrad CPC, Atari XL). In those days a PC was more of a business computer, and not really for games.
And I know about the SID, I used to have a C64 myself years ago, so I know there wasn't anything better. And I know it has 16 different colors. But if you just look at the colors, they have a weird "plastic"-feel about them, the pink being too pink, brown being too brown, etc (hard to describe really). What I'm trying to say is that the colors are just "weird", but on the other hand, that way it distinguishes itself very easy from the rest ;-) . But it can be that it looks that way because of the low resolution (160x200).