Nintendo in its latest "Iwata Ask"s series talked of Wii U hardware and the process of building the console. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata talked with engineers that worked on the console.

Iwata spoke with four people involved with the development process: Noboyuki Akaga from the Product Development Department; Yashisa Kitano, also from Product Development Department; Ko Shiota, Deputy General Manager of Product Development Department; and Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director and General Manager of Integrated Research and Development Divison.

An early issue was whether to build a vertical or horizontal console; Kitano revealed users at E3 2011, the console's unveiling, asked if Wii U could stand upright. While it does not, Nintendo built a stand to accommodate the preference.

Iwata also mentioned that the reason Wii U could be made more powerful, when compared to the Wii, at this size was due to the reduction of heat sources to just one.

"I remember Takeda-san saying rather early on that we should use an MCM [Multi-chip Module]. And we were also making something in an unprecedented way, where we combine various chips made by multiple semiconductor manufacturers into one package," revealed Iwata.

Nintendo also revealed that it had difficulty getting the graphics processing unit (GPU) and computing processing unit (CPU) optimized. Shiota added that the hardware and software teams worked together, along with manufacturers, to analyze defects and provide feedback. While defects emerged quickly, Wii U was left switched on for a whole day before defects arose, Akaga added. The latter process is called an aging test, Iwata pointed out, and is necessary to make sure the console works over time when with consumers.

Wii U is also confirmed to be backwards compatible with Wii, enabled through the fact that Wii engineers work on its successor.

"There were times when you would usually just incorporate both the Wii U and Wii circuits, like 1+1. But instead of just adding like that, they [the engineers] adjusted the new parts added to Wii U so they could be used for Wii as well," noted Shiota. In turn Wii U's semiconductor is smaller, reducing power consumption.

Wii U launches on Nov. 18 in the U.S. and Nov. 30 in the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.