Nintendo's Main Cartridge Maker Macronix Is Quitting The Business

Macronix, the main producer of physical Nintendo cartridges, has announced that it is quitting the business.

The company has made ROM chips for the original Switch for years, and that work continued with Switch 2. Now it has said there will be no new ROM products, and Q3 is the last quarter it will report ROM sales separately.

In its financial report, Macronix said ROM has fallen to 5 percent of its sales, down from 26 percent a year ago. Its chairman said capacity is limited and the company is moving to NOR and eMMC memory chips instead.

Analyst David Gibson pointed out that Macronix is not Nintendo's only game memory card maker. So collectors don't need to worry yet about physical games being phased out, at least not yet.

Gibson also noted that digital sales are rising for Nintendo. Between April and June, digital made up 61.5 percent of Nintendo's software sales, up from 59.3 percent the previous year.

That figure can move around quite a bit. Gibson said Nintendo's digital share has ranged from 46.1 percent to 67.2 percent over the past year, and big physical launches can shift it.