The latest Media Create hardware chart has been published today, and with the latest figures, updated to January 4th, we learn that the Sony's finally overtook the million units sold in its Japanese home turf.

Last week the PS4 was still 30,000 units short of the goal, but New Year sales (42,216 units, reaching a total of 1,012,883) managed to push it through. On New Year's day Japanese families entertain the tradition of gifting money to children, a custom called Otoshidama, and that normally boosts sales across the board. It normally makes the New Year's week one of the most relevant shopping weeks the year.

The battle with the other major Japanese home console, the Wii U, has been rather fierce during the holidays. According to Media Create, the Wii U won three weeks in four in December, even if Sony won the fourth by over 40,000 units.

In the crucial Otoshidama week, PS4 came on top, with Nintendo's console selling "only" 30,031 units, which is over 20,000 less than the 51,271 it sold last year during the same period.

Sony's console managed to beat the rival despite the fact that the Wii U had the two best selling home console software titles in the week with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Mario Kart 8 (ranked 4th and 6th overall in the software chart), while the best selling PS4 game was Grand Theft Auto V, ranked only 10th.

That shows quite clearly that the battle for Japan between the two home consoles is far from over.

As you can see in the table and graph below, that portray the full breakdown of PS4 sales in Japan week by week since its release in February 2014, it took 46 weeks to Sony's console to pass its first million localy.

The graph also shows that the PS4's first year in Japan hasn't been a triumphant cavalcade like in the rest of the world (Sony recently announced that sales have overtaken 18.5 million worldwide). The console started strong, but besides a pair of spikes (including the most recent one caused by the Dragon Quest Heroes Metal Slime Edition), it struggled to gain sizable traction, with multiple weeks in which it was outsold even by the PS3.

On the other hand, the announcements made at the latest SCEJA press conference seemed to have sparked a renewed interest in the console, with Japanese-made titles on the rise. 2015 will be the real test.

Update: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan and Asia President Atsushi Morita confirmed yesterday at the New Year's SCE Business Meeting for retailers and store owners that the PS4 indeed overtook its first million in sales, as reported by the manager of the Tokyo-Based independent store Games Ma-Ya.