I am not talking about doing reboot or recycling prior IP here.  I mean games themselves.  Are we to a place where about every game takes its inspiration from other videogames of the past, as far as gameplay, etc... goes?  Or, are there examples of games that would be inspired by stuff outside of videogames?  I think of the like of Crazy Taxi, which I believe was inspired by driving a taxi for a fare.  

So, exactly what is new out there, or coming down, that isn't inspired by a videogame of the past?

Yes.

What was the last videogame released that isn't some sort of derivative game from the past?  Tetris perhaps?  I did mention Crazy Taxi as another idea I saw.  Maybe I am missing something

Idk, Pikmin maybe?

That may be the case:

http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/the-inspiration-behind-pikmin

Problem today about getting anything new, is to get funded, the guys funding want to see if product X will reach a niche in a marketspace, and assure X sales.  That means follow stuff from the past and presume that it will sell.  You have someone like Miyamoto, with pull, or indie guys who end up doing stuff like Minecraft, and you can get outside of the box.  But it is seriously doubtful there will be any majorly funded project that aren't based on stuff in the past in some capacity.

The thing is, 99% of things created use inspiration from something in one form or another, hard not to really.

Can lead to good things though...as well as bad in some cases

This is nothing out of the ordinary. As work builds upon work, there soon comes a point where originality becomes very difficult. It's the same in any medium. You won't find many original concepts in films or novels, either, as they've mostly all been done before. The challenge then becomes to build on quality.

It's a lot easier to be original when you're not following decades of previous efforts.

Well, if it can be established as true, then the next thing is to ponder its impact.  I can see very much that repeating the same patterns over and over is going to result in an industry getting stagnant, and boring.  New IP will have less and less of a chance to break through, and people keep buying sequel after sequel, until it crashes and burns like guitar games.

They are not that rare, even recently. What about Katamari Damacy, Flower, or Auditorium... actually I guess there are heaps of minor puzzle games that have entirely original mechanics - and in their case mechanics is all they are.

If you go Indie, I can agree.  I am not saying that you can't have this be so at all, just that on the top end, you are less likely to see it happen.  Bigger the budget, the less off the path you get.

Heck, maybe I can give you Heavy Rain as a possible exception.