There are SDXL pixel art models out there that do actual pixel art. They generate images that are 8x too large, you need to downscale them and reduce colors externally.

yeah, the original Retro Diffusion models were an early example of that - IIRC it had models separately fine-tuned for 32x32, 64x64, etc. so you'd nearest neighbor squash'em down to that size after the initial gen to kill the high frequency noise.