Microsoft calls it quits on WP YouTube app, reverts to web player

It looks like Microsoft has given up on being able to build its own YouTube app, reverting back to the basic web player.

Things started looking really gloomy a couple of months back, when Google blocked the Redmond-based giant’s most recent app, rendering it useless with the error message “something happened, we’re not sure what” appearing whenever someone tried to play a video.

The issue stems from the fact that Microsoft’s been trying to build its own “fully featured” YouTube for a while now. The trouble is, the app it had built apparently allowed people to download videos and stripped out all the advertising.

In response, Microsoft said that it would be happy show ads on the videos but only if Google allowed it to by granting it access to the API. Further complicating the issue, says The Verge, is the fact that Google wants Microsoft to build the app using HTML 5, despite its own native YouTube apps for Android and iOS using Flash.

Both companies seem fairly keen to play victim here, although the only real losers seem to be Windows Phone users. Given the fact that Microsoft has reverted to the old web player, it also seems pretty clear that the situation is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.