[This is a follow-up to my recent research on the Switch 2 Game Card suppliers situation.] Latest financial disclosures from MegaChips (メガチップス) suggest that:
- MegaChips may begin shipping ROM ICs for NS2 GC in this fiscal year
- It can use >100 layer 3D NAND to “increase capacity and reduce costs”
First, some background: MegaChips has been Macronix’s (旺宏) development partner and exclusive distributor for Nintendo’s ROM business since 1994 (image below). So the data cited in this thread reflects their collective shipment.
MegaChips’ Apr-Jun sales declined 32.8% YoY, largely due to weak demand for Game Card ROM (image 1 below). So unlike Rolm (ローム), they seem stuck shipping for NS1 only. And yet, MegaChip forecasts only a small YoY dip of ROM sales in FY25 (ending 2026-03) and a large upswing in FY26 (image 2).
The forecast suggests that MegaChips anticipates a rebound of Game Card ROM sales later this FY, by launching “mass production of products” for “next generation game console” (image below). This corroborates the UAnalyze report of Macronix expecting future NS2 ROM shipments.
Last year’s MegaChips Securities Report disclosed that: “by utilizing 3D memory with >100 layers, our company is developing technology to achieve reliability comparable to 2D memory” (image 1 below). In this June’s report, however, it was updated to: “… our company has achieved reliability comparable …” (image 2).
So MegaChips only recently cleared the technical hurdle to “satisfy customer needs for superior reliability while increasing capacity and reducing costs” using 3D NAND. This could explain the delay of their ROM production for NS2 Game Card.
If the report of Macronix plan to produce Game Card ROM with either MLC NAND and 3D NAND is accurate (not a given), my guess would be that MLC is for low-capacity cards—might even be NS1 only—while 3D NAND is used in larger cards for NS2.
Although we can’t be certain that Game Cards of varying capacities will appear—Nintendo might not order them even if the tech exists—it seems that the supply of ROM is set to increase at least.
Sources: doc 1, doc 2, and doc 3
[Originally posted on 2025-08-08 Pacific Time]
