If developers are looking to jump on the 3DS bandwagon, they’d better be prepared to spend a little more than they did on making DS games. Hachimaki, a Japanese gaming blog, poured over Marvelous Entertainment’s financial documents and discovered that 3DS development may cost between ¥50 million ($599,000) and ¥150 million ($1.8 million). Marvelous ballparked the amount during an investors Q&A session after the release of its earnings report.

Hachimaki then compared that figure to average development costs in 2009 collected by the CESA, as reported by Geimen. Japanese developers spent between ¥4.4 million ($52,700) and ¥43.9 million ($526,000) on DS, while PSP titles had a slightly wider spread of ¥3 million ($35,900) and ¥59.2 million ($709,000).

It’s already been widely assumed that 3DS games will retail for more than their DS siblings. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has already confirmed that 3DS development costs would be close to Wii costs as well.

[Thanks 1UP]