Level-5 is driving a few more nails into the coffin of the Nintendo 3DS, as it has been revealed that the first game in the Yo-Kai watch series is being ported to the Nintendo Switch.
The announcement was made via the Dennoji Reto YouTube channel. According to Gematsu, the announcement also mentioned that the Nintendo Switch version of Yo-Kai Watch would be released after the Nintendo Switch Lite, which is set to hit stores on September 20, 2019.
Yo-Kai Watch won't be the first entry in the series to be released on the Nintendo Switch, as Yo-Kai Watch 4 has also come to the system in Japan, with a worldwide release expected to come later. It's possible that ports of Yo-Kai Watch 2 and Yo-Kai Watch 3 will be released for the Nintendo Switch at a later point. The second and third Yo-Kai Watch games each had two different versions (in the exact same manner as the Pokémon series), with a third version that contained more content released later on.
The Yo-Kai Watch series became a huge hit in Japan in 2014, yet attempts to break the series in other countries were mixed, and the key North American market never took to the series in the same way that it did with Pokémon. It's possible that Level-5 and Nintendo are willing to try again on the Nintendo Switch, which has become an extremely popular system. The series has also seen a downturn in popularity in Japan, so it's possible that the Nintendo Switch port is an attempt to win new fans to the series who might be turned off by starting with the fourth numbered installment.
The Yo-Kai Watch series made its debut on the Nintendo 3DS, but that system is reaching its final days, which is why Yo-Kai Watch 4 was moved to the Nintendo Switch. The arrival of the original Yo-Kai Watch to the Nintendo Switch is just another example of the decline of the system, as there will be less reason to check out the original versions of the first three games if they all receive updated ports.
The Nintendo Switch port of Yo-Kai Watch is due to be released after September 20, 2019.