Acer revealed its Nitro Blaze 8 and 11 Windows gaming handhelds almost exactly a year ago, at CES 2025, but the 8- and 11-inch gaming handhelds have yet to materialize as purchasable products, nor have they shown up at CES 2026. According to recent reporting by Windows Central, Acer has put those gaming handheld ambitions on hold, with a representative from the company telling the publication that while the handhelds are still part of the launch roadmap for the US, "launch plans are TBD." The representative goes on to effectively blame the US tariff situation for the delayed launch, saying that Acer is "focused on our core products."

While the Acer Nitro Blaze family has not yet been cancelled, although the devices were slated to launch in Q2 2025, its continued delays could result in diminished success, especially if Acer doesn't upgrade the internals before launch. After all, while 16 GB of RAM is certainly still enough for many games, especially when running at lower resolutions and frame rates as is common on gaming handhelds, premium devices like the ASUS ROG Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go 2, and the OneXPlayer OneXFly at the very high end, have already stepped up to 32 GB and beyond. The AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS that would have originally powered the Acer Nitro Blaze devices will also soon start to show its age.