Taiwanese semiconductor maker Macronix has said it will phase out production of the ROM used in Nintendo Switch game cards. Chairman Miin Wu made the announcement at an earnings briefing on October 27, according to the Taipei Times. The company posted record net profit and a 70.5% gross margin for the quarter, even as ROM had shrunk to just 5% of its revenue mix. The exit looks like a small-scale cleanup for Macronix, but its impact on Nintendo depends on whether alternative suppliers exist and on what sourcing terms Nintendo can secure.
Macronix Announces ROM Phase-Out After Strong Earnings
Macronix's net profit for the July–September 2026 quarter was NT$10.95 billion (about US$337.8 million), up 42% from NT$7.74 billion in the previous quarter. In the same period a year earlier, it had posted a net loss of NT$862 million. Gross margin improved sharply to 70.5%, from 64.4% in the previous quarter and 13.5% a year earlier. According to the Taipei Times, rising demand for AI-related memory and tight supply are supporting higher prices, and the company expects price increases to continue in the October–December quarter.
Against that backdrop, Miin Wu said ROM production would be phased out. According to a summary of the earnings call Q&A by Taiwanese outlet UAnalyze, the reason given was that, with limited resources, the company will prioritize NOR and eMMC, and that the gaming business had already become less important. ROM will no longer be reported as a separate business line starting with the next earnings briefing, and the 8-inch fab has already been converted to NOR production. However, the UAnalyze article is a third-party summary, not a verbatim transcript. Although the ROM phase-out is described as gradual, no specific end date has been disclosed.
ROM Falls to 5% of Revenue, About One-Nineteenth of NAND and NOR
The change in Macronix's revenue mix is key to understanding the exit. According to earnings materials reported by TechNews and StatementDog, of the NT$24.237 billion in revenue for July–September 2026, NAND (including eMMC) accounted for 47%, NOR for 46%, ROM for 5%, and the foundry business for 2%. NAND and NOR together made up 93% of revenue, or 18.6 times ROM.
ROM revenue was about NT$1.2 billion, or roughly US$37 million at the exchange rate used by the Taipei Times. However, because the product breakdown is rounded to whole numbers, the actual ROM share lies between 4.5% and 5.5%, and the ratio to NAND and NOR combined ranges from roughly 17 to 21 times. Profit margins by product are not disclosed, so this comparison cannot be used to judge which products are more profitable.
Comparison with a year earlier shows how quickly ROM's presence has faded. Total revenue for July–September rose 195% year over year, which implies prior-year revenue of about NT$8.2 billion. ROM revenue, meanwhile, fell 39% year over year, implying prior-year ROM revenue of about NT$2.0 billion, or roughly a quarter of the total. Allowing for rounding in the mix, ROM's share then is estimated at about 22–27%. Over the past year, NAND revenue grew 768% and NOR 158%, while ROM declined. In other words, ROM's falling share reflects two overlapping factors: shrinkage in the business itself and explosive growth in NAND and NOR.
This shift in revenue mix is also tied to Macronix's capital investment plans. According to Miin Wu, new equipment will take at least a year to come online, so near-term earnings growth is expected to come mainly from higher prices rather than higher output. Increased production from the first phase, a NT$22 billion investment, is due to begin in the second half of 2027, while an additional NT$15.8 billion is expected to start production in 2028 because of equipment delivery delays. The new capacity is planned for eMMC NAND and 3D NAND.
With capacity unable to expand significantly for now, how existing equipment is allocated across products will drive profitability. Miin Wu also said customers are asking for more data-center NOR. Prioritizing NAND and NOR, where demand is strong and which account for most of revenue, while leaving ROM at a 5% share, appears reasonable from a resource-allocation standpoint. This is, however, an analysis based on published figures and management remarks; Macronix has not explicitly stated that this is why it is exiting ROM.
The exit appears to have a relatively small effect on Macronix's business as a whole, but the effect on Nintendo is a separate matter. Public information does not show how many companies supply ROM to Nintendo or in what volumes. Whether alternative suppliers exist, and whether switching would change terms such as price or supply volume, cannot be determined at this point.
Will Switch Game Cards Be Affected? Conditions for Judging a Supply Shortage
Although Macronix's ROM business is shrinking, it still recorded 9% revenue growth quarter over quarter in the latest period. It fell 39% year over year, so the long-term contraction is clear, but demand has not declined steadily throughout. And if Nintendo can source enough ROM from other manufacturers, Macronix's exit may not significantly affect game card supply. But because the breakdown of Nintendo's suppliers has not been made public, that possibility can be neither confirmed nor ruled out.
The UAnalyze summary says the gaming business has become less important to Macronix, but offers no specifics on the scale of its dealings with Nintendo or on contract terms. Because the ROM phase-out will also proceed gradually, there is little basis to think supply will be cut off immediately. At this stage, the more important issue than a game card shortage is how Nintendo secures suppliers, prices, and supply volumes during the transition.
This view would be overturned if an actual game card shortage emerged. For example, if Nintendo or a major game publisher announced delayed releases or limited shipment volumes because of card shortages, it would indicate that supply capacity itself, not just sourcing terms, is the problem. Whether any such shortage stems from Macronix's exit would need to be confirmed separately. Because Macronix will stop reporting ROM revenue separately from its next earnings briefing, announcements from Nintendo and game publishers will become an important input going forward.
The supply of Switch game cards is also relevant to consumers in Japan. However, it has not been confirmed whether Macronix-made ROM is used in Switch 2 game cards. Changes in sourcing terms could affect game software pricing or card capacity choices, but no information points to a specific impact. How much the exit affects actual product supply will depend on future sourcing arrangements and market trends.