Acer's Nitro Blaze Gaming Handhelds Are A No-Show At CES And Here's Why
Acer is gearing up to launch several gaming handhelds under its Nitro banner, including a supersized Nitro Blaze 11 with a 10.95-inch IPS display and detachable controllers. Or is it? All of the handhelds Acer previously announced were a no-show at CES this week, raising the question of whether they've been delayed or outright canceled. So, which is it?
In a statement provided to WindowsCenteral, Acer confirmed it still plans on releasing its barrage of gaming handhelds in the United States, though there's still no confirmation on exactly when it will happen.
"This is an emerging product category that remains on Acer’s U.S. roadmap, but our local launch plans are TBD. As we continue to navigate the tariff situation, we’re currently focused on our core products. When products become available in the U.S, we will let you know," Acer's statement reads.
These days, we've become more accustomed to skyrocketing memory prices and uncertainty over storage supply in the consumer sector as reasons for missing out on hot product launches. We suppose in that sense, it's mildly refreshing that Acer's pointing to tariffs as the reason for the delay, though the end result is virtually the same.
It's been tough sledding for gamers over the past year. Tariffs have played a role, though more recently, the AI boom has been the bigger frustration for consumers with companies allocating more chips to the data center to keep the AI beast fed.
For this and other reasons (including tariffs), we've seen price hikes on a lot of core gaming hardware, including game consoles (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, as well as the Switch 2 debuting at a higher MSRP compared to the Switch 1), prebuilt systems, and components like DRAM.
Acer is correct that the handheld market is emerging, though it's also maturing at a rapid rate. It took Intel all of 2 nanoseconds to confirm plans to port its Panther Lake chips to gaming handhelds at some point (see our chat with Tom 'Tap' Peterson, where he answers our question about handheld plans starting at the 6min55sec mark), and the market is far more fleshed out now than it was when Valve launched its Steam Deck.
Here's hoping Acer does truly keep its Nitro Blaze handhelds on its U.S. roadmap as the company indicated, which it first introduced back in September 2024 at IFA.
