Macronix, identified by analyst David Gibson as Nintendo’s main memory chip maker for physical game cartridges, says its ROM chip production has reached its end. The company plans to gradually withdraw from the game industry, according to its third-quarter earnings report, as reported by Taiwanese news site BigGo Finance.
The shift comes amid strong demand for memory and storage chips, which has also affected the supply of components such as RAM, SSDs and GPUs. Macronix said production of its ROM chips has fallen 39 percent over the past year and now accounts for just 5 percent of its business.
Macronix is prioritizing more lucrative, in-demand products, including NOR- and NAND-based memory and eMMCs. Its production capacity is limited to 25,000 12-inch wafers a month, while the company’s planned $1.2 billion capacity expansion will take at least a year to come online. Continuing to make less profitable ROM chips uses capacity that could instead go toward those other products, potentially putting pressure on the supply and cost of physical Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 cartridges.
Sources: Ars Technica.