All nine Picross e games released on the 3DS are being given a new lease of life on Nintendo Switch.

The games have been unavailable for purchase since March this year, when the 3DS (and Wii U) eShop closed.

As reported by Nintendo Life, developer Jupiter has announced the first game in the Picross e series will be released at some point next year under the name Picross S+.

Picross S+ will cost £3.99 (or €5/$5 for readers elsewhere). The rest of the Picross e games will be available as additional content packs at the same price.

The Picross e series initially released between 2011 and 2018. The last in the series, Picross e9, was only released in Japan, meaning fans of the franchise outside of Japan will be able to get their hands on the game for the first time.

It may be a slightly convoluted way of porting the games onto modern hardware, but it's better than the alternative - that these games end up lost to history forever. The Video Game History Foundation recently estimated that 87 percent of games released before 2010 are now unavailable.