Glad I could help! I still remember the feeling of playing gears of war for the first time and being blown away so enjoy! Great games. Microsoft is also reportedly working on streaming devices that use cloud gaming as a cheaper alternative to Xbox consoles.

GP can be used to stream games to your other (non-Xbox) devices using Xbox Cloud Gaming. It’s a monthly fee, and sorry but I only tested it out briefly when it was first launched so I can’t speak to the lag an video compression fidelity. I do know that Microsoft put a lot of $ into ensuring you could use cloud gaming without top of the line internet speeds. I’ve heard that you may notice a slight delay for competitive online games like FPS but won’t notice much of a difference for single player games.

The first party Microsoft games (Halo, Gears of War, Forza, most of the Bethesda games like Fallout, Skyrim etc.) are there to stay and don’t cycle out. Other third party games are announced and remain on the service for at least a few months or longer. And these games span from indies to AAA blockbusters like Assassins Creed, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc.

When they cycle out they will announce it under a “leaving soon” message and you will lose access just like Netflix in your example. The silver lining is that usually when one of those games is slated to be removed, they offer a discount (I think 20% or so) for Gamepass subscribers to purchase the game.

Gears of War is a first party Microsoft series so the entire series is available on Gamepass! But I’m not sure if they are all available for cloud gaming so you’ll want to double check that part.

Edit: I just did a quick search and it looks like all the gears of war games (and all the Gamepass games) are playable with cloud gaming.

No, what you do need is a subscription to Xbox Gamepass, which is their video game streaming service and includes Xbox Cloud Gaming (technically still in public beta I believe). You’ll be limited to the games available to stream on the service but “limited” isn’t the right word. There are tons of great games that live on Gamepass and even more that cycle through from time to time. That include all Xbox studios first party games, EA Play, and a bunch of great games. You can check out the full list of available games on the Xbox site or by downloading the Gamepass app for IOS. But to answer your question in a long winded way, no you don’t need an Xbox.