Macronix ROM exit could put pressure on Switch 2 cartridge costs

Macronix, a long-time memory supplier for Nintendo hardware, is phasing out its ROM business — a decision that could add pressure to the cost of physical game cartridges, although it does not mean Nintendo is abandoning boxed games.¹²

What Macronix is changing

Macronix announced its third-quarter 2026 results on 27 October. The company’s official figures show ROM accounted for 5% of sales in the quarter, down from 26% a year earlier, while NOR and NAND memory made up most of its business.¹ Eurogamer reports that Macronix plans to phase out ROM products entirely by the end of its third fiscal quarter and will not develop new ROM products.²

That does not remove every cartridge supplier from Nintendo’s hardware chain. Macronix is one of the companies producing ROM memory used in Switch and Switch 2 game cards, while other suppliers remain involved. The immediate story is therefore a reduction in available capacity, not the end of physical releases.

Why Switch 2 players should care

The risk is straightforward: if fewer manufacturers are making the memory used in game cards, remaining capacity could become more expensive. Eurogamer says that may put pressure on the price of physical games, but neither Macronix’s results nor the reporting confirms a specific price increase from Nintendo.¹²

The change could also make Game-Key Cards more attractive to publishers. These packages look like physical releases but use the card to authenticate a download rather than holding the complete game. That can reduce the amount of ROM required, although it also means the ownership and preservation benefits of a full cartridge are not the same.

Nintendo has continued to support physical games, and this development alone does not overturn that position. It does, however, make the manufacturing economics less comfortable for a company still selling systems such as the Nintendo Switch 2 and games including Mario Kart World.

What has actually been confirmed

The confirmed facts are narrower than the most dramatic headlines. Macronix’s own results show the ROM business has become a much smaller part of its sales mix, and the company is concentrating on NOR, NAND and eMMC memory instead.¹ The claim that new ROM products will not be developed comes from industry analyst David Gibson, as reported by Eurogamer and Nintendo Wire.²³

There is no confirmed announcement that Nintendo will raise the price of a particular game, stop producing full cartridges or make Game-Key Cards the standard format. Those are possible consequences discussed by analysts and publishers, not decisions Nintendo has announced.

Our opinion

This is bad news for physical games, but not because one supplier leaving instantly makes cartridges impossible. The more important shift is that physical media is becoming a less comfortable business at every stage: storage capacity is expensive, publishers increasingly favour downloads and now a specialist supplier is redirecting its manufacturing capacity elsewhere.

Nintendo’s advantage is that it still has enormous leverage over the format. It can keep full cartridges viable where they matter, use smaller or cheaper capacities where appropriate and leave Game-Key Cards for releases that genuinely need them. The danger is that a gradual squeeze becomes an excuse to make the less consumer-friendly option routine.

For now, Switch and Switch 2 owners should read Macronix’s move as a warning about future physical releases, not as a cancellation notice. The next meaningful evidence will be Nintendo’s pricing and packaging decisions, not speculation about what this supply change might eventually cause.