Cash money yo.

It's all in Nintendo annual report. 

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/annual/

Here is a break down for you guys if you're interested-

This is how much Nintendo have spent on Research & Development:
FY2015: $527m
FY2014: $696m
FY2013: $567m
FY2012: $642m
FY2011: $363m

This is how much Nintendo have spent on Advertising:

FY2015: $456m

FY2014: $682m

FY2013: $650m

FY2012: $909m

FY2011: $1,160m

The r&d for 2014 makes much sense since many of the patents that were revealed on Gaf a few months ago were filed in 2014.

Hopefully Nintendo spends at least 1b in marketing this year like 2011 because that could help to bring more attention to their NX system. 

NX development I am sure.

idk why this is interesting news then, its less than the last 3 years.

That's a lot of money, hope the NX is worth it.

I don't recall much about 2011 -- how much was the 3DS advertised that year (I assume the increased budget in 2011 was for the 3DS release) because it would give a lot of us an idea of how much Nintendo is going to push the NX.  Also, 900m in marketing in 2012 yet I don't recall much advertising for the Wii U.

Anyone know how this compares to PS4, XB1 r&d costs?

Seems quite a lot, but in the end it all depends on if they're trying something new or they'll just improve on something already existing/invented. I.e. The Motion controls of the Wii as some of you might know were invented by this dude that went first to Sony, then to Microsoft and only in the end to Nintendo to see if they were interested, meaning that Nintendo had to spend significantly less to finalize the Wii compared to probably most of their systems...

Notice how the year before new platform released was when it was lowest.