XBOX Themes for VS Code

Visual Studio Code color themes inspired by the XBOX console generations:

Console editions (chronological):

• XBOX (Original 2001) — dark theme inspired by the matte-black original console and its translucent neon-green "jewel" logo (#9bf00b).
• XBOX 360 (2005) — clean light variant with XBOX green accents.
• XBOX ONE (2013) — the classic deep-charcoal dashboard look.
• XBOX Series X (2020) — 25th Anniversary edition inspired by the translucent OG XBOX green hardware — neutral warm grays with a soft controller-lime accent.

High-contrast editions (accessibility):

• XBOX High Contrast Dark — pure-black background with white text, bright contrast borders, and an accessible green accent (#2ecc40, ~9.8:1 contrast).
• XBOX High Contrast Light — pure-white background with black text and strong dark-green/blue contrast borders.

Plus matching XBOX Icons file icon themes for the Explorer — Colorful and Green (see below).

Install

From inside VS Code:

1. Open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X).
2. Search for XBOX Themes.
3. Click Install.
4. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) → Preferences: Color Theme → pick any XBOX theme (console editions or High Contrast).

Or from the command line:

code --install-extension hector-jimenez.xbox-theme

Recommended settings

These themes are tuned for VS Code's semantic highlighting and bracket-pair colorization (the palette defines all six bracket levels and a full semanticTokenColors map). For the intended look, add to your settings.json:

{
  // Language-server-aware token colors (functions, types, parameters, etc.)
  "editor.semanticHighlighting.enabled": true,
  // Colorized matching brackets + active-pair guide
  "editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled": true,
  "editor.guides.bracketPairs": "active"
}

File icons

The extension also ships two file icon themes that pair with the color themes, giving the Explorer full-coverage icons for files, folders, and languages:

• XBOX Icons Colorful — the familiar full-color icon set.
• XBOX Icons Green — the same icons recolored into a single XBOX-green duotone, for a brand-consistent, monochrome-style look.

To enable one:

1. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P).
2. Run Preferences: File Icon Theme.
3. Pick XBOX Icons Colorful or XBOX Icons Green.

The Explorer with the default icons, XBOX Icons Colorful, and XBOX Icons Green:

Default icons	XBOX Icons Colorful	XBOX Icons Green

The icon themes are independent of the color theme — you can mix either with any color theme (or switch back to your previous icons) at any time. Teams can pin one per-workspace via .vscode/settings.json:

{
  // "xbox-icons-colorful" (colorful) or "xbox-icons-green"
  "workbench.iconTheme": "xbox-icons-colorful"
}

The file icons are bundled from the MIT-licensed vscode-icons project; the green variant is a derived recolor. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md for attribution.

Screenshots

Each theme rendered on the same source file, in console-generation order. Every shot is produced deterministically by npm run screenshots, and each theme ships a full color-palette sheet so you can preview the entire token set at a glance.

XBOX (Original 2001)

XBOX 360 (2005)

XBOX ONE (2013)

XBOX Series X (2020)

XBOX High Contrast Dark

XBOX High Contrast Light

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at github.com/hectorjjb/vs-code-xbox-theme.

If you find a UI element that isn't colored well (or at all), please open an issue with a screenshot and the VS Code version.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full development guide — project layout, how the src/ → themes/ build works, adding a theme, testing, and the release process.

License

Apache-2.0 © Hector Jimenez

Bundled file icons are from the MIT-licensed vscode-icons project — see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.