I'm not even sure it's an 'or' at this point; I've recently gone (multiple times) through the surreal experience of having to install a client and register an account having already bought a game through a storefront for which I had to install a client and register an account and which had already ostensibly installed. In the first case it was for a game I had actually previously played before the publisher decided to slap an account on top of its offering, and I decided I didn't care enough to keep going.

This is a fundamental problem of technology, not just software, not just games games. Too many products unnecessarily tether you back to the manufacturer through an online account. When I buy something, hardware or software, I shouldn't have to check in with the developer forever, just to use it.

Yes. And games are built as multi platform so they don’t want to tie themselves tightly to the XBOX ecosystem. But the UIs for that enrollment are almost always horrible. You can tell they are designed for PCs with keyboards and mice. The scaling is all wrong for a TV based interface.