As established as they may seem, the heavy-hitting franchises like Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, and Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, and Gears of War were all new a generation ago. They felt like a fresh start for a new generation, until most of them were run into the ground with annualised releases. The generation prior, we had properties like Prince of Persia and Jak and Daxter, and with the next generation, those titles were more or less replaced with something fresh. As the latest E3 opened up with yet another iteration of Call of Duty, it's not hard to see why people are getting bored of consoles. Characters like Sack Boy, Nathan Drake, Marcus Phoenix, and Ezio Auditore spearheaded the last generation. At the time, they were something new, and although plenty of PlayStation 2 series saw sequels on then next-gen hardware, the industry as a whole felt less afraid of trying new things, something that's hard to say now.