Nintendo's cartridge maker shifts focus to data centers, hurting physical media

Macronix, Nintendo’s main supplier of ROM chips for Switch game cartridges, is gradually ending ROM production and redirecting capacity toward memory for data centers. The shift reflects changing demand: its CEO said sales of NOR chips for data centers helped drive record net profit of about $337 million in the third quarter of 2026. ROM sales fell 39 percent year over year and accounted for just 5 percent of Macronix’s memory sales, down from 26 percent in the second quarter of 2025. The company plans to focus instead on NOR flash for data centers and NAND, which it sees as a growth area; it will stop reporting ROM sales separately after the third quarter.

The change could make it harder to sustain production of physical Nintendo Switch games, but it does not mean cartridges will disappear immediately. Macronix is not Nintendo’s only ROM supplier, and Switch 2 cartridges use NAND memory supplied by a different company, ROHM Semiconductor, so they are not directly affected. The pressure on physical media comes alongside a broader shift in buying habits: digital games made up 61.5 percent of Nintendo software sales from April through June 2026, a 2.2-percentage-point increase from the end of 2025. Together, declining ROM demand, manufacturers’ investment in data-center technology, and rising digital sales point to growing challenges for physical game collectors.