A new report from Jez Corden has shed some light on the internals at Xbox gaming, namely revealing that Blizzard had a strong year, making it the top performing studio within Xbox.
Corden got all this info from a leaked internal email which claims Blizzard had its third-highest ever fiscal year in 2026, achieving consecutive quarterly growth for the first time since Overwatch launched back in 2016. Which boggles the mind, because I can’t believe it’s been a decade since Overwatch launched. Good grief.
Anyway, the email states Overwatch and Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred were major driving forces behind Blizzard’s strong year. Specifically, Overwatch had its best quarter since 2022. This probably has a lot to do with the game’s reputation being slowly rebuilt, including a soft relaunch in February where it stopped being Overwatch 2 and just became Overwatch again. Five new heroes were launched at once, with Blizzard promising 10 new heroes across 2026, alongside a UI overhaul and more. The results were good, with Steam player counts rising and even breaking its own concurrent player count record.
Blizzard had a pretty busy year, too. World of Warcraft: Midnight launched in March, while Diablo 4 received its Lord of Hatred expansion in April.
All of this needs to be taken in context, though: Corden says Xbox finished financial year 2026 down another 11%, and is still a brand that’s floundering hard. It’s currently undergoing a massive reset that involves multiple Xbox studios being sold or going independent, 1600 layoffs with another 1600 to occur across the coming year, and a shift in exclusivity strategy. That’s just a taste of what’s happening at Xbox under the leadership of new boss Asha Sharma, and it’s pretty much impossible to tell if the changes will work.
Regardless, according to the internal email, Blizzard’s success will allow further investment into its games, staff and other projects. Whether that’s smart or not remains to be seen: one good year doesn’t say much. Whether Blizzard can repeat it and continue to bring in some much needed cash for Xbox remains to be seen.
