Mario meets the AI appetite

The real news

The story, straight

A Switch 1 game card carries a ROM chip: read-only memory that stores the game for the console to read. That tiny chip needs factory space.

Unfortunately, Mario's new competition has a data center budget.

The Verge reports that Macronix, a major Nintendo cartridge supplier, is gradually phasing out ROM production while focusing on memory for data centers. Macronix is changing its business, not shutting down.

Here is the squeeze: manufacturers make chips on silicon discs called wafers. For a given chip design, each wafer fits a fixed number of chips.

Factory capacity is limited, so using it for less profitable chips means passing up more profitable production. Ars Technica reports that Macronix's ROM business is being crowded out by more lucrative memory products.

In our imaginary game-shop drive-through, I'm serving a Mario cartridge to a hungry server rack. Apparently the final boss pays by purchase order.

This concerns Switch 1 ROM cards; it does not establish that Switch 2 cards are affected. Nor is it the funeral of physical games.

Nintendo says it has "no plans" to abandon them. Other suppliers remain, and analyst David Gibson expects physical cards to continue for some time.

The useful takeaway: a supplier's exit is not a format's extinction. Watch Nintendo's actual announcements, not an imaginary cartridge apocalypse.

Sources: The Verge and Ars Technica, 4 November 2026.

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