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Nintendo's main Switch cartridge supplier is leaving the ROM business

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Nintendo's main Switch cartridge supplier is leaving the ROM business

Nintendo's main Switch cartridges has plans to abandon the ROM portion of its business, according to reporting by the Taipei Times. The Taiwanese semiconductor and memory manufacturer Macronix is phasing out its ROM production, which was confirmed by CEO Miin Wu. This could spell bad news for gamers who love physical media.

Macronix just announced a record-high net profit of $337 million for Q3 2026, but Wu says many of its new customers have issued a "demand for NOR used in data centers." NOR is a type of flash memory.

1/4 Nintendo's main memory chip maker is quitting the Switch business
Macronix, which makes the ROM chips in Switch 1 and Switch 2 game memory cards, is phasing out that business. There will be no new ROM products, and Q3 is the last quarter it reports ROM sales separately.

The company's ROM business has actually declined by 39 percent over the past year. This section of Macronix now accounts for just five percent of sales, down from 26 percent this time last year. In other words, the financials just aren't there.

There is a silver lining here. Macronix may be Nintendo's main supplier of ROM for its cartridges, but it's far from the only entity helping to create physical Switch cartridges. Also, this doesn't impact Switch 2 cartridges in quite the same way. That's because the Switch 2 carts use NAND flash memory, a market segment that Macronix isn't phasing out.

• PS5 units sold – 1.5M • Lifetime PS5 units – 93.7M • Full game software units – 74.6M • First party software units – 5.8M • Digital Download Ratio – 85% • Monthly Active Users – 125M pic.twitter.com/ARBwBehu6b


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