If you're going to go by that logic, then JRPGs are adventure games with filler battles.
So sure, filler battle-enhanced adventures sell. Action game-enhanced adventures sell. Adventures with mini-puzzles sell. Users want to control the experience, and these games add that element to what is otherwise an electronic choose-your-own-adventure book. If that's what you meant, sure, you are 100% correct. Action-adventures sell shittons and every action game with a story is at its core an action adventure.
The discussion at hand was Time Travelers though, and it's a graphically enhanced presentation of the same kind of game Chunsoft had made with some QTE added for good measure. Similar titles have existed -- Yaru Dora series was a reasonable success, for example, though discontinued after successive releases faltered -- but they're not something we see today.
I'm just using the term adventure as Japanese store clerks use it to put the games into the same shelf.
And RPGs constitute their own genre and are well defined, no need to mix them up. No one expecting a level raising game will buy an adventure anyway.
You can leave out the action oriented ones if you want too, just compare it to Layton and Phoenix Wright and you'll see that you can sell a lot more in the genre.
And adding story to an action game doesn't make it an action adventure. Adding adventure elements to it, does though (like collecting items and using them to solve puzzles in other places as in Zelda).
Is it really the same kind of game Chunsoft made? Can you define what kind of game TT is?
The trailer says it's a playing cinema, sounds and looks akin to something like Heavy Rain, probably the most modern type of Western adventure. QTEs also indicate this influence.
428 on the other hand is a playable book. You spend 80 % of the time reading and advancing pages. 10 % with looking up hypertext links, similar to text browsing on the internet. 1 % watching animated clips, 3 % with selecting multiple choice options and the rest with navigating the time chart and selecting characters.
Basically, you're reading a book with next to no animation and zero voice work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXNXZhA2Nak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZKc1b4FnXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OfPT_gE6CI
Comparing book sales and movie ticket sales, don't you think that the 'gameplay', or let's better call it experience, is appealing to a much broader audience on video game consoles in the case of TT?
It's no surprise either that many VNs add graphic adventure touches to their gameplay core, to raise their appeal. But even something like the new Kamai-tachi game for Vita, with its gyro room exploring, still is 80 % novel text with background stills. Although they added voice acting as well, not really new to VNs in general though.
TT uses the same kind of engine as a full-fledged graphic adventure for presenting its story. A polygonal one too, great looking and with detailed animated character models. Doesn't get much more costly for an adventure than this.
Edit:
Okay, now this looks a lot like 428:
So they're keeping the multiple characters and the interdependent storyline. Maybe it really is like a movie version of 428 gameplay-wise. Anyway, looks fantastic, my interest in this game has greatly increased.