After more than 8 months on the market, Sony’s gigantic gaming console has finally touched the 1 million units sold landmark in Japan, but still trails its home ground rival Nintendo Wii.

Enterbrain Inc., a Japanese firm that publishes Famitsu Weekly and specializes in collecting sales data from more than 3,500 gaming shops across the Asian country, reported that 1.01 PlayStation 3 consoles have been sold since the console’s inception on the market, on November 11, 2006.

According to VGCartz.com, more than 1.58 million PS3 units have been sold in the US until now, while Europe and other PAL territories have combined sales of 1.11 million units. Overall, PS3 sales reach 3.69 million units.

Following the recently announced price cut and the inception of new retail packages for Europe and the US, customers have snapped up all PlayStation 3 consoles available at major retailers, with both Amazon and Wal Mart displaying “out of stock” messages on their respective PS3 Web-pages.

However, the king of the gaming realm is still Nintendo, whose Wii console is on track of surpassing Microsoft’s install base for Xbox 360. According to VGChartz estimates, Wii is currently in the hands of more than 9.05 million owners- 2.98 million in Japan, 3.64 million in the US and 2.42 million in other areas. Microsoft is still the leader of next-gen, with a total of 10.08 million Xbox 360s sold out there, but Japan sales are hitting a low record, with only 410,000 consoles sold in more than 18 months.

During an interview with Gamedaily.biz, Peter Moore, ex-vice president Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB) at Redmond, said that "I built a business plan [for Japan], but I don't think my expectations in Japan were anything close to what Sony's expectations are. They are failing. They're missing their plan by much more than I'm missing my plan."