I agree to some extent, but I also think is a matter of perspective and marketing (and you're shit at describing games ).
Look at TWD, it's a 3D visual novel with some QTEs. Or Gone Home. The deal is marketing it right (and yes, changing some gamedesign stuff there, I was watching a live let's play by gametrailers, and it was almost cringeworthy the ammount of time you have to wait in the game, specially if you don't know how to get some of the dialogs). I've said before, market it as "revolutionized gaming" "one of the most awaited sagas of videogame history", throw in there some random bullshit quotes, some qte, fighting, arcade, cutscenes, cool dialogs and epic music and you have a pretty damn good trailer.
I never thought about being a hit seller, like those games you mentioned (except for MGS2, it didn't sell THAT good in the most popular console around at that time, similar to shenmue, without the decade of waiting).
But again, I disagree with the "no pop". Maybe life turned me into a fucking cynic (I know it's true), but seems like every shitty game with enough marketing can sell quite a bit. Shenmue has a good appeal to:
- Martial arts guys.
- Asian stuff fandom.
- The interactive movie people.
- Adventure gamers.
With some rewriting of the silly stuff they can make it work. It's not just "Guy's dad gets killed", but more like, "an epic journey of revenge, discovery and martial arts" "the inner struggles of a man trying to find his destiny", or whatever bullshit, throw in there Yuan as the biggest gay character in history to appeal SJW out there.
Shenmue had some pretty bland writing, and a lot of stuff was trying it to make it for kids/teens (even it had a kodomo mode), you can make some tweaks to make it more appealing.
We are not talking about a game that will turn upside down gaming industry, we are talking about making a game that will lead to some money to SEGA/whomever and finish the game we always wanted.