Nintendo is about to lose a major memory supplier for its Switch cartridges. The supplier, Macronix, announced during a recent quarterly earnings call that it would be gradually phasing out ROM production and is instead focusing on NOR flash memory for data centers, Taipei Times reports.
Macronix’s ROM revenue fell 39 percent compared to last year in Q3 2026, but its revenue from NOR memory rose 158 percent and its revenue from NAND memory surged 768 percent year-over-year. According to Taipei Times, Macronix chairman and CEO Miin Wu said during its Q3 2026 earnings call that “Demand for NOR used in data centers is very robust. Customers are chasing us for more capacity, demanding that we deliver more NOR flash solutions for data centers.” The company also reportedly “expects chip price hikes to persist.”
Although Sony has announced a plan to stop production of physical game discs starting in January 2028, Nintendo remains committed to physical games, saying recently that it has “no plans” to ditch them. Physical games also remain a bigger portion of Nintendo’s sales than other gaming companies; Nintendo said in August that physical titles accounted for 38.5 percent of its games sales, which is higher than companies like Capcom.
Macronix’s exit from the ROM business comes nearly a year after Micron shut down Crucial, its consumer RAM and SSD brand, to turn its attention to meeting AI data center demand.