Do beef eat beef? We asked Mario Kart World Producer

After grazing the fields of Moo Moo Farm and Moo Moo Meadows over the past 30 years, The cow has become the spotlight Being the biggest breakthrough star in the huge roster of Mario Kart World. So when Nintendo invited us to interview with the roundtable by Mario Kart world producer Kosuke Yabuki, we knew we had to ask him about his beloved cattle.

Yabuki began, “Thank you for your question about the cows, which is one of the best vacancy I’ve ever heard in an interview. “The decision to include cows is something we consider, and I think people are really happy about it.” So we did it. But, honestly, the public has responded much more to this than we might have expected. This was a great surprise. Thanks. ”

Yabuki's surprise of Cow's popularity matches what we heard from Nintendo's US Who told us during the interview Their internal expectations of cattle are “perhaps not as big as those of cattle.”

The origin story of the cow makes her inclusiveness better. In last month’s “Ask developers about the world of Mario Kart”, Yabuki confirmed that it is “Silly Sketch” of Developer's Cow Driving Truck This convinced him and the rest of the team to add the Cow as a playable character. I asked Yabuki about their current evolution in the development of what they call “NPC drivers” which included characters including Snowman, Penguin, Swooper and others.

“I have to say that joining the cow really opened the floodgates for us because once you have a character like this, you start thinking, 'Well, maybe we should join the people we can,'” Yabuki continued. “So that's a little bit that designers are really excited about. Once they realize that all of these characters are probably going to snap up, that's when you start to see Penguin come in, Pokey comes in, one by one, and these new design characters keep coming out. Because I honestly have the memory of approving the concept of a cow, and then the next day, I made 10 suggestions for the other characters on my desk.”

There is also a potential dark side to the story, as one of the other new members of the Mario Kart world is Dash Food, whose characters are picked from Yoshi's drives in the open world. Shortly after the unveiling of the Mario Kart world, IGN's Brian Altano noticed during a preview event Beef can eat products that traditionally include beefsuch as steak kabobs and hamburgers. So, we ask Yabuki the ultimate question: what are those vegetarian burgers or what is going on there?

Yes, beefs can eat steak in the Mario Kart world. pic.twitter.com/QN5PZ9IIM4

– IGN (@ign) April 4, 2025

“Sorry, this is the top secret,” Kabuki said with a smile. “I can't say it.”

Well, the mystery still exists. If Diddy Kong will appear in Mario Kart WorldYabuki simply said, “I'm afraid I'm not saying anything at this time.” However, the rest of the mystery of the Mario Kart world will be solved soon, as we're only two days away from the release date of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its flagship launch. For more information, please check out our The last practice preview of Mario Kart Worldimpressed us on the racing car, but still not sold in the free roaming. And, check out our Preview of the $10 release game, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Travel.

Logan Plant is the database manager and host of playlist editor for Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he patiently waits for Nintendo to announce the brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJplant.