rankings by the end of 1999, including a seventh-place finish for December. It continued to chart in Media Control's top 10 during 2000: the Königs-Edition reached #4 for the month of February and remained at 11th by August, having spent 12 months in the top 30. The following month, Infogrames Germany announced Annos re-release as a "Soft Price" budget title, with its cost reduced to DM 40. The Soft Price edition took #6 in October and November 2000 on Media Control's charts for budget-priced games, and stayed in the top 15 for February and March 2001. Anno 1602s sales had risen above one million units in German-speaking countries by September 2000, and by April 2001 had surpassed 1.5 million units worldwide. Global sales increased to 1.7 million copies by October 2001, of which the Königs-Edition accounted for 170,000 units. The SKU was re-released that month under Electronic Arts' "Classics" label, again at a budget price, and it debuted in 11th place on Media Control's budget charts for November. Anno 1602 had sold 2 million times by December 2001, including "well over a million" in the German-speaking world, according to Sunflowers. That month, the company revealed a new partnership with "ak tronic", a rack jobber known for its budget-priced "Pyramid" displays in German stores. This type of budget line formed a significant part of the German game market, and journalist later called it a key to Annos high lifetime sales. Under the agreement, ak tronic included budget-priced (€10) copies of Anno 1602 in its Pyramid displays, starting with a shipment of 250,000 units in January 2002. Peter Schroer of ak tronic forecast 500,000 sales for Annos Pyramid edition by the end of 2002. In the German market, the new release proceeded to sell 50,000 units in its first month on shelves, and it rose to #1 on Media Control's budget charts in February 2002. Taking second in March, it finished with top-10 placements in June, July, August, September, October and November. Media Control named it Germany's best-selling budget computer game (€28<) of the year, while its sequel Anno 1503 took first place for 2002 among full-price titles. By April 2003, Anno 1602 remained the German market's biggest-ever computer game hit. Its Pyramid edition secured top-10 positions on Media Control's budget charts for the first three months of that year. After an 11th-place finish in June, the Pyramid edition had spent 17