Nintendo's biggest ROM chip supplier is bowing out of the business
And what that could mean for physical Switch game costs.
And what that could mean for physical Switch game costs.
The short version
- For years, the AI industry’s insatiable demand for memory and storage has had plenty of knock-on effects on the price and availability of PC components like RAM , SSDs , and GPUs .
- Now those shortages are also squeezing the supply of ROM chips that power physical Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 game cartridges.
- Chip manufacturer Macronix announced in its third-quarter earnings report that the company’s production of ROM chips “has reached its end” and that it will begin “gradually decoupling from the game industry,” as reported by Taiwanese news site BigGo Finance .
What happened
That could be an issue for Nintendo, which analyst David Gibson notes uses Macronix as its “main memory chip maker” for physical game cartridges. This doesn’t mean Nintendo will follow Sony into a world without physical game production .
Why it matters
On the contrary, the Switch maker said last month that it had no plans to give up on the game cartridges in the near future.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.