Macronix to exit ROM chip production used in Nintendo game cards
The Taiwanese chipmaker is shifting capacity to NOR and NAND memory for data centres, as ROM revenue fell 39 percent.
Key facts
Story- Taiwanese chipmaker Macronix is phasing out ROM production, a memory type used in Nintendo game cartridges.
- Macronix said ROM revenue fell 39 percent year-on-year in Q3 2026, while NOR and NAND revenue rose sharply.
- Demand for NOR memory in data centres is strong, the company's chairman and CEO Miin Wu said.
Macronix, a Taiwanese memory chipmaker, is winding down its ROM business. ROM chips are used in physical game cards, and the company is a supplier for Nintendo's original Switch and the Switch 2. The company said it will no longer develop new ROM products.
Speaking on the company's Q3 2026 earnings call, Macronix said it will gradually phase out ROM production. It is moving its factory capacity to NOR flash memory instead. The company said its ROM revenue fell 39 percent compared with a year earlier. Its NOR revenue rose 158 percent over the same period, and its NAND revenue surged 768 percent.
Macronix chairman and CEO Miin Wu said on the call that "Demand for NOR used in data centers is very robust." The company is betting on data centre demand as its main growth driver.
The move matters for Nintendo because Macronix has been one of its key suppliers of ROM chips. Those chips go into the game cartridges that Nintendo sells. Losing a supplier could limit how many physical cards the company can make in future. Nintendo has not commented on the change.
It is not yet known whether prices or availability of game cards will change. Nintendo has not said how it will replace the supply.
It is not known when Macronix will stop ROM production completely, or whether Nintendo has already found another source for the chips.
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