Nintendo's biggest ROM chip supplier is bowing out of the business

Macronix, Nintendo’s main supplier of memory chips for physical Switch and Switch 2 game cartridges, says it is ending ROM-chip production and will gradually withdraw from the game industry. The decision reflects a memory crunch driven in part by demand for AI-related products: Macronix is shifting limited factory capacity toward more profitable NOR, NAND, and eMMC chips. ROM production has fallen 39 percent over the past year and now makes up only 5 percent of the company’s business. Macronix’s capacity is currently 25,000 12-inch wafers per month, while planned expansion will take at least a year to come online.

Nintendo says it has no near-term plans to abandon cartridges, but losing its biggest supplier leaves it more dependent on alternatives such as Rohm and Lapis Semiconductor. That could raise cartridge manufacturing costs and, in turn, the prices publishers charge for physical games. Nintendo has already priced some physical releases above their digital equivalents, while smaller-capacity Switch 2 cartridges have helped make production more affordable for at least one publisher. Growing digital sales may soften the impact: downloads accounted for 61.5 percent of Nintendo’s business in the second quarter of 2026, slightly more than a year earlier. If that share continues to rise, declining demand for cartridges could eventually offset their higher production costs.