Another Blow For Physical Media As Nintendo’s Switch Cartridge Chip Manufacturer Pivots To Data Centers

The Taiwanese semiconductor and non-volatile memory manufacturer Macronix is phasing out its ROM production, according to its CEO and chairman, Miin Wu. That’s potentially terrible news for fans of physical games, as Macronix is Nintendo’s main ROM supplier for Nintendo Switch cartridges. This was spotted by MST Financial’s Senior Analyst David Gibson in a post on X earlier today, but the news itself actually stems from Macronix’s Q3 2026 results which the company shared on October 27. During the presentation, Macronix CEO Miin Wu revealed that the company had enjoyed a “record-high” net profit of roughly $337 million for its Q3 2026 period. But in a translation provided by the Taipei Times, Wu stated that Macronix’s customers’ “demand for NOR used in data centers” was primarily the source of its record-high profits, while also noting that its ROM sales had dwindled by a whopping 39 percent over the past year. 1/4 Nintendo's main memory chip maker is quitting the Switch businessMacronix, 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 As ROM chip sales only made up five percent of Macronix’s sales in Q3 2026, down from 26 percent in Q2 2025, Wu stated that the company has already begun gradually phasing out ROM production in favor of delivering “more NOR flash solutions for data centers” and “allocating capacity to NAND, a high-growth segment that will drive Macronix’s long-term expansion.” As many have already pointed out, Macronix isn’t the only manufacturer of Nintendo Switch ROM chips, so this isn’t an immediate cause for concern. Likewise, Nintendo Switch 2 cartridges will seemingly be unaffected, as Switch 2 carts use NAND flash memory provided by ROHM Semiconductor. Still, for obvious reasons, Nintendo’s main ROM chip supplier phasing out production isn’t good news for those still collecting Nintendo Switch cartridges. As Gibson noted, digital Nintendo Switch sales now make up “61.5 percent of Nintendo’s software sales” as of April to June 2026, an increase of 2.2 percent when compared to Nintendo’s year-on-year sales at the end of 2025.