Naofumi Hataya is a composer, keyboardist and manager at SEGA. He joined the company’s home console department as a sound designer in 1990 and worked on Mega Drive games like the Golden Axe series and The HybridFront. He is best-known overall for his occasional contributions to the Sonic the Hedgehog series, while other notable songs appear in Virtua Racing Deluxe, SEGA Rally Championship (Saturn), the NiGHTS series, Burning Rangers, the Space Channel 5 series, the ROOMMANIA series, the Samba de Amigo series, the Rub Rabbits! Series, Rhythm Thief and Uta Kumi 575.

Hataya's works often take influence from sampled music and Black American culture/music, like R&D, soul, Funk and hip-hop, though he has also dabbled in chiptune since the late 00's.

He is married to Tomoko Sasaki, and the two often collaborate, especially for video games directed by Takumi Yoshinaga.