I always noticed the shuffling of red and blue. I personally always thought that since blue is meant to be more relaxed than red, it’s player 1 in more aggressive games like Smash, whereas player 1 is blue in more relaxed games like Wii Sports. But, it seems like there is actually a lot of variance that bucks that trend.
Red is an aggressive and assertive color, where blue looks defensive and collected. In the context where someone invites someone else to play with them at home, the person who owns the game usually is Player 1, so assigning them the red color really emphasizes the "home team" status, where the Player 2 guest assumes the "visitor team" role in this comparison.
It's probably context sensitive for which a developer may prefer. Shown in the video, Pokemon Puzzle League had p1 blue and p2 red, likely carried over from the single player aspect of the game. As Tetris Attack is a competitive puzzle game, the player should be more calm and strategic, so they use player blue and opponent red. As an aside, in an online multiplayer game (ex Overwatch) colors are allowed to be consistent to context, and not in coordination with teams designations as player experiences are separated and aren't shown to each other. To elaborate, in a defending game the team is blue, in an attacking game the team is red. In games where both teams are trying to attack a goal, their team designation is shown as red on their own screens. I believe there is a Polygon video discussing colors and even studies done on the effect of certain team colors effecting wins. Sports that reward aggression typically have more winners that wear red, and ones that reward defensive and measured strategy have more winners that wear blue.
I grew up on Wii, so 🔵🔴🟢🟡 is my most familiar player color assignment. Some fun facts I can contribute: • Just Dance 1 used 🔴🔵🟡🟢, but Just Dance 2 switched over to 🔵🔴🟢🟣 (purple instead of yellow), and the series does to this day, extended with yellow and pink for 5P and 6P if available. • The Wii player colors are also in the same order as the colored buttons you can see on Japanese TV remotes! Some programs have interactive content, and will invite viewers to answer quizzes using the four colored options in real time through Data Broadcasting (データ放送).
Yeah, I also learned from the Wii. Sometimes it depends on the game I've last played, so the game that I am currently most familiar with, but usually I would say the Wii colors.
I’m surprised you didn’t bring up 8-Player Smash for Wii U and Ultimate as they have four extra colours for when you play with more players. These are: Orange, Cyan, Purple, and Black.
I was going to say this but also even that didn’t stay consistent as the colors you mentioned where for Wii U but Ultimate changed the last 2 ports New Player 8 got old 7’s Purple but New 7 turned Pink.
@@TeknoThom yeah, no problem I also had to search it to check as I thought they just switched positions for the last 2 but no Black was removed in favor of Pink. 1-6 including Orange and Cyan for 5-6 stayed the same at least.
here's a fun one: in the original doom games, the colors go green, """"indigo"""" ( it's just grey ), brown, and red i imagine this is by-and-large because of the palette they ended up using. doom naturally has a lot of red, grey, and brown owing to all the gore, machinery, and fleshy creatures ( and level features ), so it'd just as naturally have a lot of the palette committed to those colors. so when swapping out palette indices for multiplayer, the choices were kinda just made for them there's also a p. significant blue range that they _could've_ used ... but as anyone who's played a significant amount of doom ports that allows for custom player colors _without_ switching to a true color renderer can tell you, the gradient looks kinda gross on the player sprites. especially when in dark areas. i kinda figure they were originally gonna use that range for player 2, hence calling them color indigo, but they changed their mind after seeing it in action and just went with what was left instead
I always liked the Wii colors, Player 1 is blue, Player 2 is red, Player 3 is green, and Player 4 is yellow. I always liked if there was a system wide standardization of the player colors to keep it consistent, so a lot of games used those colors, even games outside of Nintendo use these. But I think just because of Smash Bros sheer popularity they get swapped a lot
I dont think so, it was proven by the chart that red is more common as player 1. It seems to have been especially more common during the GameCube era, which is when I grew up, so I've always associated red with player 1. I wouldn't really attribute it just to Smash.
It also allows for some contrast with the main Mario cast. Red on Blue, Green-Blue on Blue (Luigi is sometimes put as Blue), Yellow/Reddish on Green (Peach), and Green on Yellow.
The player color scheme matches how languages develop names for colors. There's a paper written by Paul Kay and Brent Berlin about the order in which languages develop words to distinguish between colors. Languages almost always start off with words differentiating Black, White, and Red, and then as the languages develop, they'll most likely develop words in the order Yellow and/or Green, Blue, Brown, and then a mix between Gray Purple Orange Pink and so on. This color order supports the colors used in 4-player games, Red Blue Green and Yellow are all the first colors differentiated by languages and so are used for the 4 players, whereas later developed colors like orange and pink are used far less. Although, there is a bit of a catch where blue is actually developed AFTER green and yellow in languages, and yet it typically comes BEFORE in player order.
Here's my logic... -There are two main sets of primary colors (RBY and RGB). -Red and Blue are common to both sets, thus they are player 1 or 2. -Green and Yellow are the remaining primaries, thus they are player 3 or 4. -Secondary Colors are either Green/Orange/Purple or Yellow/Cyan/Magenta. -Orange and purple are in the standard colors of the rainbow and thus win out for player 5 or 6. -This leaves Cyan and Magenta as players 7 or 8. -For me, the shortest wavelength gets the tiebreaker, therefore the correct order is... P1 Blue / P2 Red P3 Green / P4 Yellow P5 Purple / P6 Orange P7 Cyan / P8 Magenta You are free to invert the order of each tier if you wish, but otherwise this is objectively the correct order. 😛
I like the way you think it's weird how RBY and RBG are both considered to be sets of primary colors. I know it has to do with additional and subtraction. Like mixing paint versus mixing light.
Let's not even get started on the other set of primaries, CMY Cyan, Magenta, Yellow. All in All, if a game has 8 players, the colors it should use are Red, Magenta, Purple, Blue, Cyan, Green, Yellow, and Orange. Obviously not in that order, but you get the point
@@SnooplaxYep! The additive primary colors are RGB - this is light based, which is why it's the setting most people are familiar with working with screens, or digitally. Subtractive primary colors are CMY, and that's more for printer ink and the like.
You did mention Kirby Air Ride, but I want to expand a bit to the Kirby series in general. While the colors of P3 and P4 can vary, it's pretty much universal for P1 to be pink and P2 to be yellow. In games, this traces all the way back to Kirby's Dream Course on the SNES, and is presumably a result of initial considerations of what color Kirby was going to be when they were designing him: Sakurai always envisioned him as pink, while Miyamoto when seeing initial drafts of him thought he would be yellow. Because of Kirby's Dream Course, Kirby fans tend to consistently refer to Yellow Kirby as "Keeby", since that was Yellow Kirby's name in Dream Course. During the GBA/DS era, it was common for P3 to be red and P4 to be green, as established in Nightmare in Dream Land and Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. This would continue with little variation until Kirby's Return to Dream Land, which basically standardized P3 as blue and P4 as green for the rest of the series going forward from there.
The same is true in Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, player 1’s Donkey and Diddy Kong wear a red tie and red shirt and cap respectively, while player 2’s is yellow instead.
@Maxuel De Almeida Barreto Braga seems like a good theory, but if that's really the case I am even more annoyed that they replaced red kirby because not only is it detrimental to the world building and lore, but I quite like the alternative version of fighter and would love to see more alt versions of copy ability hats, and it's just lazy.
Also in Mario Party 7, there's an 8 Player mode, but the way they do 8 player is weird. You're on teams and two players share a controller, with Player 1 using L and the analog stick, and Player 2 using R and the C-Stick. As for the colors, they're shared between teammates but one game in particular, Bumper to Bumper, gives each player they're own color. Team 1 is red and pink, team 2 is blue and cyan, team 3 is green and lime, and team 4 is yellow and orange. Also of note is the notation for teammates on the select screen goes P#-1 and P#-2.
Since there's an 8-Player Association here, we can't forget Smash's 8-Player mode where P5 is Orange, P6 is Turquoise, P7 is Purple, and P8 is Dark Grey
Red as a striking color is always easy to use as the color to represent 1. And while I agreed on this originally, I would gradually associate Blue with P1, as Red more strongly suits the 'Enemy' or 'Opponent', making it a more natural fit for P2. Now for me, P3 as Yellow makes a lot of sense, as it rounds off the Primary Colors being 1,2, and 3 respectively. With Green just being there to fill in as 4. Yet still, Yellow as 4 always felt more right to me.
The primary collours are actually red blue and green (rgb), not red green and yellow. While school often teaches that the primaries are red green and yellow this is actually not true at all (almost makes you wonder what other stuff school lied to you about lol)
@@jismeraiverhoeven Yellow *is* one of the primary colours, but for subtractive colours. The other negative primaries are cyan and magenta. If you ever wondered why your printer uses CYMK for its ink, this is why (K stands for "key" and means black)
@@rocketlanterns yeah i knew that but i was talking about additive primaries here specifically. Tough i always wonder why the printer also uses black considering that it can make it simply by combining the other collours. Is it to preserve colloured ink reserves?
Yellow is only a primary colour in cmy (cyan, magenta, and yellow) used in printers. You can't actually create a light green with blue and yellow since blue is too dark for subtractive colour. Cyan is brighter than blue and makes a much better green. In additive colour where mixing all primaries makes white (red, green, and blue), yellow is too bright and throws off the others. So the primaries used by screens are RGB (sometimes W for white as well used in LG TVs) and the primaries used by printers are CMYK (k is black and is needed to create darker colours). These are industry standards that create all the colours you see in magazines, and everything on your phone, they are the only real primary colours since it is used by everyone everyday, when rby is only used by children playing with paint.
Star Fox 64 is an example of color associated to characters. In the single-player campaign, the boxes around each characters portrait when speaking are yellow, red, green, blue for Fox, Peppy, Slippy, and Falco, respectively. Those colors also match a color associated to each of the characters, with Fox, Slippy, and Falco matching their body color, and Peppy matching his clothing color.
I find it interesting how Smash Bros’s eight player smash mode pretty much assimilates all other multiplayer color schemes that don’t fit the RBGY standard. P5 was orange and P6 was teal in both games. P7 was purple and P8 was dark grey in SSBWIIU, while in Ultimate it was shifted to have P7 be pink while P8 was purple. Smash Bros really is a celebration of gaming, it’s even used pretty much every multiplayer color ever!
I think one of the reasons why P1 is Yellow in Mario Kart 8 is because Yellow is the brightest color out of all the colors, so they probably just wanted P1 to stand out among the rest. Though i can't really say that's a reason Nintendo actually thought about, because P2 is Blue, the darkest one out of everything, and then colors get brighter for P3 and P4 (red is the third brightest and green second brightest). If they really had brightness in mind, they would've used Green for P2 and Blue for P4, resulting in a gradual decrease of brightness as players keep joining in, so the fact that they didn't makes this scenario unlikely, but it's still interesting to think about.
I would've associated blue more with player one. Especially in shooters, blue usually represents "the good guys" a.k.a your team, while red is the enemy team. So it makes sense for blue to be the default, player one colour. Interesting that the majority of games actually assign red to player one.
Ace combat's color coding follows the same dynamic too. I think it stems from East vs West conflict ideation, since the USSR and China used red and yellow and the Nato flag is blue and white.
But those colors are consistent for every player not just one and two. Enemy is (almost) always red and your team is (usually) blue and allies being green. Or maybe I've played too much fire emblem
@@navolas2 Well yeah, war roleplayers like combat Sims or strategy games normally depict the player team as green or blue and the enemy team as red and yellow. Fire emblem came out in the 80s right? The Cold War could have easily affected the course of the series' narrative.
@@RealBillyFanword I’ve noticed that in Ace Combat too, the only exception I can think of are Ustio who use red despite being good guys (Hoffnung not withstanding), and Volsage which uses a light blue despite being on Erusea’s side in 7.
@Slender Man 186 Yeah, I think that Axe and Hammer UI from Ace Combat 0 was a clever way of way distinguishing Ustio's alignment from Osea and Usea. I interpret Belka as Germany and Ustio as West Germany, which makes sense given the colors of the German flag.
I love that series. I'm pretty sure it let's you pick what character you want to be though for example player 3 can pick blue toad so the game doesn't technically have colors assigned to each player
I'm used to blue and red being swapped around for P1 and P2 being seeing green and yellow not being used for P3 and P4 respectively is what really caught me off guard
This reminds me a lot of the "which subject gets which colored folder" debate. My favorite is 3 yellow and 4 green, with 1 and 2 interchangeably being red and blue
@@goober3097 History is Orange, Science is blue and English is green (swapping the two is acceptable though), and my Japanese class was always purple. Otherwise, i'm not sure i have any other connections, math was whatever was left over, i guess.
I think my favorite player colors come from the first Worms games due to how unique they are. White, yellow, blue and red! Next games had a more conventional color system with red, blue, green and yellow (and cyan and pink in the games that allowed for 6 players), but in those they added team systems meaning any player can be any color they want
One weird oddity is Crash Bash. The character select screen uses Yellow, Pink, Green, Red. But the Pogo Pandemonium minigames, as well as Ring Ding, use Yellow, Red, Blue, Green for the paint and balloon colours. And the other minigames are either colourless, or assign colours for the vehicles based on the characters (Blue for Crash, Pink for Coco, etc.).
It's interesting how many older games used pink, and how it's completely fallen out of style now. I assume that's because green and yellow are both part of different primary colour sets, but pink is only used in the niche CYMK printer colours (which ironically is the only one to use four colours)
@@elio7610 The "K" in CMYK stands for "key." It's not black. It refers to detail and outlines. So the fourth color would be whatever color is used for fine details in that game, which is actually not normally a pure black but often simply a dark color that goes with the palette.
I thought I was the only one who ever paid attention to this. I grew up with the DS and later Wii, so Blue1/Red2/Green3/Yellow4 is burned into my mind and it always seems off when it's a different order. I remember seeing this in Mario & Sonic and being very confused, as up until that point I'd only really seen the order I grew up with. Kinda sad you didn't bring up 8 Player Smash, which adds some more funky colors into the mix.
This feels like such a niche topic but man this is something interesting to think about. Maybe one day if I ever make a multiplayer game I'll do something like player colors being yellow, green, blue, red in that order to shake things up
This always irked me as a kid. Everyone knows Player 1 is ALWAYS red. Btw, the Wii version of Mario Power Tennis changed the colours to the Wii series scheme.
Imo Blue or red can be player 1 Sometimes yellow or orange work as P1 too but it has to be the right game. Also Playstation games usually have Blue as player 1 because thats the Playstation colour
I think the Mario Kart Wii example is super interesting, as I really never realized how much that breaks the mold. I do think the yellow worked really well though, to me it made sense because in that game the hud and colors felt more gold than yellow so there was the association of gold = 1st = p1 at play
I personally go with the Wii format in my head, doesn’t help that blue is my favorite color so I am bound to be more bias towards it. 3:09 Yo I see that Weliketoplay footage in bottom left, nice to see someone remember them.
1:32 My theory for this is because Yellow is similar to Gold, Blue is similar to Silver, and Red is similar to Bronze, then Green is just the leftover color
Really interesting video! Love statistics like this. If you ever do a sequel or follow-up, though, I think you should consider separating (dark) Blue from Cyan (light blue). Cyan/light blue is considered an entirely separate colour from (dark) Blue in multiple languages and countries, so I think it would be interesting to see which is more prevalent. Alternatively if you wanted to be extra thorough, I guess it wouldn't be too hard to make one chart with the Blues split and one with Blue/Cyan combined.
now this is the kinda gaming analysis videos that i am into & i love that the background constantly changes to match into the colours currently being said
The multiplayer games I played the most with my friends as a kid were Smash, Mario Party, WarioWare, and Super Monkey Ball, all on the Gamecube, so Red/Blue/Yellow/Green is pretty ingrained in me
I think the order of the options in the youtube polls nudged people to pick certain options. For each poll the number player that was being asked about had the majority of voters picking that number option. Like for the poll asking which color people associated with player 3 people picked the third option of the poll and that was the same for all the other polls. I'm curious whether the results would have a big difference if the order of the options was changed.
Yeah, I think that skewed the results a bit. First colour in the list was voted P1, second was P2, third was P3, fourth was P4, all by a significant margin.
That’s funny, I was thinking about what colors games use to denote player color not that long ago. Would’ve liked to see some data about players 5-8, in games that support that many. After doing some research myself, after having #5 be orange, #6 be light blue/cyan, and #7 be pink in both Wii U and Ultimate (though a much paler pink in the latter), Smash actually breaks its consistent streak by making #8 dark gray/black in Wii U and purple in Ultimate. Also, Minecraft: Legacy Console Edition, which in fact supported up to 16 players on some platforms, at least for the minigames, went: 1. White 2. Green 3. Red 4. Blue 5. Magenta 6. Orange 7. Yellow 8. Turquoise 9. Dark Blue 10. Yellowish-Green 11. Purple 12. Yellow-Orange 13. Dark Red 14. Dark Green 15. Pink 16. Brown
Before I even clicked on this I was thinking of Super Smash Bros. The player colours are so noticeable, even with just one player. It's ingrained into my mind.
A little piece of nostalgia for me was whenever someone brought over a spare controller to play multiplayer and I finally got to see what the next player color was as it glowed off of the CRT screen. I'd try to guess what color it'd be and occasionally I was right, like predicting whether P3 would be green or yellow, but sometimes there'd be a wild color like pink which was a nice surprise.
I’m surprised to see Kirby Air Ride, not because that it’s kind of obscureish now-a-days, but because it’s player color is entirely dependent on what color Kirby is. Following your guidelines, I feel as though this would belong in the other crowd.
Yup you are right. The 2 player mode is separate from multi-player so when I was collecting footage I must have missed it. P1 Red 🔴 P2 Blue🔵 P3 Yellow🟡 P4 Green🟢
At least CPUs are mostly gray also shoot out to smash bros with the 8 player smash. The colors from P1-P8 are Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, Cyan, Pink and for some reason P8 gets Slate
In Smash '99, CPs use shields depending on player side: Red for 1P, Green for 2P, Blue for 3P and Black for 4P. Melee onwards uses Gray shields on CPs regardless of player side.
this is really interesting! i’m a little bit surprised that sega superstars tennis wasn’t mentioned! it used blue for player 1, red for player 2, yellow for player 3, and green for player 4!
Correction: Kirby Air Ride doesn't use Pink, Yellow, Red, Blue; as it uses the color of each matching Kirby color, with the user being able to unlock four more (Green, Purple, White and Brown)
Another one that's interesting to me is Advance Wars, as the colours of units are weird in that game. In story mode the colours are applied to the armies as you would expect ( e.g Green Earth being Green ) but in freeplay/versus/war-room they have the colours apply to the player number, so a Green Earth commander using Green Earth units could be Yellow if they are in player 3. As this stops conflicting battles where two COs from the same army in story can fight each other in freeplay
This is something I think about more than I should, cool to see a video on it! Always been RBGY myself, but interested to think of the games that influenced that being my idea of player colors.
I was wondering if you could look at Elemental weaknesses in video games, see how they differ and their own reasons for why certain elements are strong against others.
So cool to see someone talk about this, the swapping and shuffling of colors was something I always noticed, but I never really thought to bring it up to someone cause I thought it was just me being weird lol
i really like how rivals of aether uses red blue pink green, pink on p3 is pretty uncommon and from whats in this video it seems to usually bring yellow with it instead of green. very unique in a way i like, especially since it couldve easily just used the smash colours
Also, in the Lego Games, they switched it up, making player 2 green, but player 1 is blue. And for the eight player Smash games (Brawl and Ultimate), they are the same and go; Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, light blue, pink, and purple in that order.
The Price Is Right, one of the world's longest game shows, uses the RBYG player color format. Even many video games used this format, too. Not to mention Power Rangers RPM using this same format.
I’ve thought about this when playing Starfox Assault! I was thinking how did they decide the colors for the players. Very creative video, loved it a lot!
The minigames in Kirby Super Star Ultra uses Pink, Yellow, Red, Green for its player colors Kirby and the Amazing Mirror also has the same color scheme for the default colors, but since everyone will have their own cartridge, they can change their color to whatever they have unlocked if they would like
some non-retro games i'd like to mention: Rocket League - orange and blue Counter-Strike series: - all games before CS:GO use Red and Blue - CS:GO and CS2 changed it to Yellow and Blue Worms series - the first game, as well as Director's Cut and United use Yellow and White - second generation being Worms 2/Worms Armageddon/Worms World Party has Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan - the rest of the games use Red, Blue, Green, Yellow afaik (might need more research) - WMD uses Blue, Red, Green, Yellow great video, would love to see even more modern games/series to see how the trend changed
I think - for the polls - another connection between Yellow and Player 3 is people thinking of pigment colours, where the three primaries _are_ red, blue, yellow. Despite the existence of RGB, I imagine it could be less "natural" to think of. Although, on the actual programming part, using color hexes (that are indeed RGB) makes green more naturally a player 3 from a Developer point of view.
I grew up with the Wii colours (blue, red, green, yellow) the most and, up until I was about 11 or 12 years old, thought it was THE definitive colour order for players and every other one was wrong.
I already talked about this on Twitter in a reply a tweet mentioning this video, but since I thought it would be good to put it here as well (and since you briefly mention Kirby Air Ride) I wanted to quickly list all the multiplayer colours in Kirby games, because they've swapped around a bit over the years. It should be noted that Pink is ALWAYS Player 1, as it is the standard colour for Kirby. *Kirby's Dream Course* was the first to introduce a colour for Player 2, being yellow. (In reference to it being the colour that Shigeru Miyamoto wanted for Kirby.) *Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards* was the first game to have a 4 Player Minigame Mode, and has the order Pink, Yellow, Green, Blue. *Kirby Air Ride* is actually Pink, Yellow, Blue, Red to start, though I believe you're able to swap colours around in Multiplayer. *Kirby and the Amazing Mirror* and *Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland* has Pink, Yellow, Red, Green. (I'm assuming Squeak Squad has the same colours, but that game only has Multiplayer for the Sub-Games and I CANNOT find footage of that for the life of me.) *Kirby's Epic Yarn* has Pink and Blue. (Since you play as Kirby and Prince Fluff respectively.) and from *Kirby's Return to Dreamland* onwards, the order has been Pink, Yellow, Blue, Green. So there ya have it! A quick history on the Multiplayer colours in Kirby games. Hope you find this helpful!
Encased you didn't know (which I am guessing many don't know), there's one game series that lacks the red colour for players 2 or 1 (which are the Buzz! and Buzz! Junior series). Instead of your normal Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow. Red is now replaced with Orange. Which makes it Blue, Orange, Green, and Yellow. This makes the game very unique, and it's actually my favourite play colour code. Orange feels more fitting for Player 2 if you asked me. One more thing, unlike the other games, you can actually choose which colour you want to play instead of forcing you to stick with one colour.
You actually can't count Kirby Air Ride, as while the *default* colors for each player are Pink, Yellow, Red, and Blue, the color is ultimately a choice made by the player that can be swapped around on the ready up screen before the round starts and can be expanded to unlockable Green, Purple, Brown, and Monochrome Kirbys
I will always go for the Smash Bros colors, it just makes sense for me, given how iconic the game is as a whole, it's the multiplayer game of excelence for me and my friends.
I played Mario Party DS for a huge part of my life, and always saw it as P1 Blue, P2 Red, P3 Green, and P4 Yellow. Then I played a newer MP game and the order threw me off the first time I played
For Mario Kart, I always read player 1 yellow as Gold. And that made sense to me as #1 gets the gold. Note that when you're in first place in single player it is gold as well.
Super Monkey ball also had the classic colorsceme of Red, Blue, Yellow and Green. Thats the one I got used to and always appreciate the most. Interestingly enough it also has colors up to player 8 for CPUs only. Those are present in the Racing Minigames only if I remember correctly. I dont know the correct order but I remember the colors of Purple, Light Blue, Dark Green and I think turquoise. edit: I was refering to the Deluxe version mostly because it was the one I played. What I found out is that black and white were colors too. Interestingly enough cpu colors also had a purpose: depending on the map, some CPUs will perform better than others.
You know. I was thinking about this very subject the other day. What are the odds of getting a video recommended to me about such a specific subject not long after I was thinking about it.
Banjo-Tooie got it right. In my professional opinion, it should be Red-Green-Blue-Yellow. It literally spells out RGBY, signaling the order of light-emitting displays, and the original generation 1 Pokemon games released in this order.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one thinking about these things. Thank you for proving I'm not insane. Just a reminder that there is at least ONE person out there who's had the same thought as you!
I feel like this topic might be more subjective than objective. For me, any of the three primaries can be arranged in almost any order of 1-3, with some biases. I feel like they each can have reasons for being P1, but things get trickier after that in determining 2 and 3. So, for example, Red symbolizes dominance and control, but also inexperience and recklessness. That's why I like it in action-packed games like Smash. Blue symbolizes wholeness and wisdom on the other hand, which is why I like it in more calmer or down to earth games like Wii Sports. As for yellow, I imagine it symbolizing success and achievement. It's a very traditional mindset which is why I like the golden yellow in Mariokart Wii. Green will almost always be P4 with this assumption, which I think is best when you consider how 2-player and 3-player games work. Also also, I'm becoming a fan of removing these colors entirely as well. I still remember when choosing your favorite color would cause arguments among little children which I think is why color-coded hierarchies are slowly disappearing.
I remember Daytona USA had 8 player multiplayer, while Daytona 2 could do 16, if you had enough arcade machines. In Daytona 1, P1 was red, P2 was blue, 3 was yellow, 4 was green, 5 was black, 6 was pink, 7 was cyan, and 8 was orange. In Daytona 2, they completely bucked the trend and just made the colours, for all 4 types of cars, completely different. 48 different colour combinations for multiplayer, plus the 8 different singleplayer variants. The only consistent colour scheme was for #4, which was yellow with a red number to reference the real life Kodak #4 that won the Daytona 500.
I don't know where this pattern originated from, but in my head, I always put them in the order of Blue, Green, Yellow, Red. Blue comes first because it seems to be the most widely loved color, Red and Blue are "opposites" so they stay on opposing ends of the list, Yellow is next to Red because they are both "warm" colors, and Green is next to Blue because the first things you see when you go outside is the Blue sky and Green plants. Also, Green is between Blue and Yellow because that's the color you get when you mix Blue and Yellow pigments.
