Tohru Okada, creator of PlayStation's iconic logo sound, has died
Tohru Okada, the musician and music producer responsible for creating PlayStation's iconic logo sound, has died aged 73.
Okada's music career spanned decades and a wide variety of mediums including movies and anime, but he was perhaps best known in Japan as a founding member of influential rock band Moonriders, where he played alongside bandmate Keiichi Suzuki — who would go on to compose the music for Nintendo's Mother series.
Okada's own ties to gaming came primarily through his successful career composing for commercials. He notably wrote music for a series of very strange Crash Bandicoot adverts in the 90s (thanks Gamespot), but his most enduring — and immediately recognisable — contribution to gaming arrived through his work with PlayStation.
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His iconic musical accompaniment to Sony's PlayStation logo — a sort of brisk fuzzy ping, for want of a better description — has appeared at the top of countless PlayStation adverts for more than 25 years and is still routinely used now. You can, for instance, hear it at the start of this No Man's Sky trailer uploaded earlier today.
Japanese press are reporting Okada passed away from heart failure on the morning of 14th February, with his management sharing the news earlier today.
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