Thinking about it, the fact that the new Bumblebee is part of a numbered line instead of being a special one-off implies that other such figures are on the way. Since he's being released for the tenth anniversary of the first movie, could other Masterpiece Movie Series figures likewise be for the first movie, or could they be for the movies in general?
Even though the Shadow Spark Optimus has apparently been in stock at some Asian online stores for a little while now, it looks like it's official release was last night, and Bladestorm managed to get a couple of them.
(the official release date for them noted in the 15th post of this topic did say April)
Here are a few photos:
I have to say I'm really impressed with this figure. The paint detailing is very nice - Metallic blue and flecks of bronze show Hasbro has put a little more effort into this figure. To be honest it feels closer to a Takara release. It isn't perfect - I would have liked to see them extend the paint app to the black and the grill on the front a bit more but I'm still very happy with him.
His backpack doesn't seem to dominate like the AoE OP's did and the transformation is definitely different from the first edition figure - quite clean and easy to follow through. His tyres have tread on them and I have to confess I'm somewhat torn as to which way to display him!
It's an interesting.... almost evil-looking... deco, without going the full black that TakaraTomy loves to do. (maybe they have exclusive rights to that redeco format )
This is a Leader class toy (the TF4 leader toy), but as with a lot of redecos lately, particularly in Asia now, it's significantly more expensive than the original toy.
The original toy was about HK$500 in HK, which is about US$65 or AU$85.... but this one has a retail price of about HK$700 in HK, or about US$90 (including Malaysia where it was also noted at this equivalent price), which is about AU$120.
Considering out Leader price point WAS AU$90-100, and the US price point is US$50 (about AU$66), that's a big increase... regardless of it being exclusive or not, as it looks to have been produced in enough numbers that it could have been priced at the regular price-point.