[bane]

In terms of memory architecture, does anybody know if Nintendo went with cartridges in order to better address the limited RAM of the system (compared to other consoles)?

In the old days cartridge ROM was just mapped into the system RAM so you could address game assets without necessarily having to load them into system RAM, thus you could get by with far less RAM than you'd expect.

[slantyyz]

Just a guess, but maybe the I/O of storage on the cartridge is more consistent than the inexpensive microSD cards that people tend to buy?

-- edit Another benefit is not having to install/uninstall the game to manage space

[cbhl]

Seems unlikely, since Zelda and other games are also available as a digital download (although you may need a microSD card to hold them all).