The savvy reporters at British media-reporting site Screen Critics were first to notice a major financial report from Macronix, a Japanese company that has provided memory-related chips to consoles as far back as the N64.
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Fresh evidence has cropped up suggesting that the Nintendo NX won’t use optical discs and will instead utilise 3DS-style game cards. “Wu Miin suggested that as Nintendo had just announced it will release a new generation console in March next year, and the console will be launched at the same time in Japan, America and Europe, so ROM’s sales is expected to increase in the latter half of this year, and it will have a large growth potential”.
Macronix is testing a new line of 32 nm ROM chips. If this is true, the Nintendo NX just got a lot more awesome. “Therefore, the operating revenue of Macronix in the fourth quarter may be as good as the third quarter”. Previously, Nintendo’s orders for ROM chips peak during the third quarter, then decline in the fourth quarter. Going back to cartridges would also come with some advantages, so it will be interesting to see the path Nintendo will take with its new console. A quick path to that would be removing a bulky, expensive optical disc drive-and perhaps selling an entry-level NX model with a smaller amount of on-board flash memory, or none at all.
The Nintendo Wii U is the only current-gen home console to actively load software from its discs, while both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 require disc-based games to dump their files onto a hard drive.
The first is Macronix, which provides Nintendo with ROM cartridges applied on the 3DS family and is having a “weird” increase in sales.
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Nintendo hasn’t commented on the rumours but recently confirmed that the console would launch in March 2017.
