Overwatch Joins BW2026 as SanDisk Pushes Storage Across Every Platform

At Bilibili World 2026, which opened on July 10 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, Sandisk used booth 3.1H-3A20 to present storage as more than a spec-sheet product launch usually does. Alongside partners including AMD, ROG, Overwatch, Nikon, and LUMIX, the company presented gaming- and creator-focused storage solutions, with the SANDISK Optimus internal SSD family at the center. At a show centered on ACGN culture, game entertainment, virtual idols, and digital content creation, the emphasis felt deliberate rather than cosmetic.

The scale of BW2026 gives that approach some weight. This year’s event features more than 170 exhibitors, a record high, including 130 global game exhibitors showing titles such as Genshin Impact, Arknights, and Delta Force. The show is divided into nine major zones around the ACGN ecosystem, including Game World, Dream Market, Virtual Park, Beyond Animation, Love Notes, UP Creator Space, Model Heroes, and Tabletop Together. Against that backdrop, Sandisk’s decision to turn its booth into a cyber arena with an esports competition stage and six interactive themed areas, including the Superpower Experience Zone, Speed Track Zone, and Rapid Challenge Zone, frames storage as something more immediate than “just a component.”

The product segmentation is unusually easy to follow. Sandisk’s SANDISK Optimus internal storage lineup is divided into three branches: the SANDISK Optimus series, the SANDISK Optimus GX series, and the SANDISK Optimus GX PRO series. In practice, GX PRO covers the flagship tier, GX targets mainstream players, and the rest of the booth fills out the creator lineup with portable SSDs, memory cards, and Type-C flash drives. Compared with brands that try to stretch one model across every use case, this lineup is easier to match to actual hardware, whether that means a desktop tower, an AI PC, a laptop, or a handheld gaming device.

That distinction is clearest in the internal SSDs. The SANDISK Optimus GX PRO 8100 NVMe SSD is Sandisk’s flagship consumer PCIe Gen 5.0 retail SSD, with sequential read speeds up to 14900MB/s and write speeds up to 14000MB/s. In the 2TB to 4TB versions, random performance exceeds 2300K IOPS. The SANDISK Optimus GX PRO 850X NVMe SSD, meanwhile, is Sandisk’s flagship PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSD, with the 2TB to 4TB versions reaching up to 7300MB/s sequential read, 6600MB/s sequential write, and up to 1200K IOPS random read performance. Put simply, the 8100 looks like the uncompromising option for high-end desktops and workstations, while the 850X lands closer to the sweet spot for most current gaming PCs.

The more targeted product may be the SANDISK Optimus GX 7100 NVMe SSD. Aimed at mainstream gamers, it uses Sandisk’s eighth-generation SANDISK BiCS TLC 3D CBA NAND, offers capacities up to 4TB, and in the 1TB to 2TB models reaches up to 7250MB/s sequential read and 6900MB/s sequential write. It also uses a DRAM-Less architecture to improve power efficiency. That matters because laptops and handheld gaming devices care about heat, battery life, and capacity balance in a way desktop systems often do not. On that front, the GX 7100 feels more in tune with what laptop and handheld players actually need than a simple chase for peak numbers.

Sandisk also used BW2026 to expand the conversation beyond gaming into creator workflows. Its consumer lineup on display covers memory cards, flash drives, and portable SSDs, and the company partnered with Nikon, LUMIX, and SmallRig to demonstrate high-performance storage solutions for imaging and content creation. Products shown included the Sandisk Creator Series, the Sandisk Extreme PRO Dual Drive Type-C flash drive, the Sandisk Sprite SSD, and the Sandisk FIFA World Cup 2026 licensed product series.

The Sandisk Creator Series spans smartphone SSDs, microSD cards, Type-C flash drives, and portable SSDs to cover the full content-creation workflow. The standout is the Creator smartphone SSD, which can connect to MagSafe-compatible smartphones and offers up to 2TB of capacity, up to 1000MB/s read speed, and up to 950MB/s write speed. It supports direct recording of 4K 60fps Apple ProRes video, while also offering three-meter drop protection and IP65 water and dust resistance. Compared with shooting on a phone, transferring footage to a PC, editing, and exporting it again, this kind of setup brings storage closer to the point of capture, which makes particular sense for creators filming, editing, and posting on the move at a show like this.

Sandisk also showed its FIFA World Cup 2026 licensed range, including a whistle-shaped USB-C flash drive, event-themed portable SSDs, and professional-grade memory cards.

The practical buying takeaway is fairly clear: high-end desktop users should watch the GX PRO 8100 first, assuming the rest of the system can make use of PCIe 5.0 bandwidth; mainstream gaming laptop users and mobile players who care more about battery life should get more practical value from an efficiency-focused option like the GX 7100; and smartphone video creators can go directly to the Creator smartphone SSD. Chen Guanghui, General Manager of Sandisk China’s Distribution Channel Business Division, said BW2026 gave the company an ideal opportunity to connect more deeply with consumers who use technology to create, entertain, and share. At this year’s show, that came across as more than standard brand language. From the Overwatch collaboration to the imaging-creation demos, Sandisk did a better job of showing what different players and creators can actually use than simply posting benchmark numbers.