Macronix chairman and CEO Miin Wu said the company is gradually phasing out ROM production, a business that supplies memory chips for Nintendo Switch game cartridges. He outlined the shift at the chipmaker’s October 27, 2026, earnings briefing as the company directed manufacturing resources toward other memory products.
Analyst David Gibson described Macronix as Nintendo’s main memory chip supplier for game cards. In a November 4 assessment of the results, he said Macronix would introduce no new ROM products and would stop reporting ROM sales separately after the third quarter of 2026.
Capacity shifts toward other memory products
Macronix reported that ROM accounted for about 5% of third-quarter sales, with revenue down 39% from a year earlier. NAND-related products represented 47% of quarterly revenue, while NOR flash accounted for 46%, the company said.
Wu said the company’s existing 12-inch fabrication plant was fully utilized, with capacity of about 25,000 wafers a month. He said new investment required a waiting period of at least a year, limiting the company’s ability to expand production quickly.
The company said its two investment phases totaled NT$37.8 billion, approximately $1.2 billion. Wu said the first phase was expected to increase output in the second half of 2027, while equipment delivery delays meant the second phase was not expected to yield output until 2028. The company said new capacity would serve NAND products, including embedded multimedia cards, or eMMCs, and 3D NAND.
Wu also described strong demand for NOR flash used in data centers. “Customers are chasing us for more capacity, demanding that we deliver more NOR flash solutions for data centers,” he said. He said Macronix was directing new capacity toward NAND to support its longer-term growth.
Nintendo’s physical game plans
Nintendo has separately expressed continued support for physical releases. In an October interview, Bill van Zyll, its vice president and general manager for Latin America, said: “There’s no plans to ditch physical.” He said the company takes consumer preferences into account and recognizes fans’ interest in the format.
Gibson said Macronix was not Nintendo’s only game memory card manufacturer and expected physical cards to continue through other suppliers. He also predicted further growth in digital-only releases and Game-Key Cards.
Nintendo reported digital sales equivalent to 61.5% of its dedicated video game platform software revenue for April–June 2026, up from 59.3% a year earlier. Its digital measure covers downloadable versions of packaged games, download-only games, add-on content and Nintendo Switch Online. For digital sales, Nintendo records its own titles at gross value and third-party titles as the commissions it receives.
