As highlighted by Tom’s Hardware, Macronix has recently opted to shift its business strategy in a way that will likely affect gamers. Notably, Macronix is one of Nintendo’s key suppliers of ROM chips.
Reports indicate that Macronix is moving away from its ROM production business. If true, this means that they’ll instead be focusing their resource on manufacturing NOR and NAND flash chips for AI data centers.
“Nintendo’s main memory chip maker is quitting the Switch business,” said MST Financial David Gibson on X.
“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.”
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.— David Gibson (@gibbogame) November 4, 2026
The good news is that Macronix is known for being one of Nintendo’s key suppliers for Switch 1 ROM chips. They do also produce Switch 2 ROM chips for Nintendo, but that business is primarily handled by another chip manufacturer, ROHM.
As of right now, physical cartridges for Switch 2 games tend to be about $10 more than their digital counterparts. This event could serve as a catalyst for yet another price increase for physical games.
In recent times, Sony has been receiving a lot of criticism from fans due to their decision to discontinue physical game production for the PlayStation 5 by January 2028.
Vice President and General Manager for Nintendo in Latin America Bill van Zyll recently promised to fans that Nintendo has no plans to discontinue physical production of games.
“We also have a platform that was just launched. We’ve been around for a little over a year with the Nintendo Switch 2, and it offers both digital and physical games. Therefore, we have no plans to abandon physical media,” said van Zyll on the matter. “We know how much fans enjoy it.”
However, if more chip manufacturers follow Macronix’s example of shifting away from ROM chip production in favor of supporting AI data centers, even Nintendo may be forced to exclusively release games as digital downloads.
Either way, we’ll have to keep a close eye on the situation to see the impact on prices and physical cartridge availability going forward.
