His signature rhythm guitar licks launched a series of hits heard by tens of millions. He has produced David Bowie, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross and Eric Clapton. His group, Chic, redefined R & B, and helped invent hip-hop.

But if you really want to get Nile Rodgers excited these days, bypass the history and talk about video games instead. Specifically, the sci-fi extravaganza Halo 2, which he calls "the most important thing in my life right now."

"This is the new rock ‘n' roll," said Mr. Rodgers, seated at the kitchen table of his Westport home and starting intently at the screen of his laptop computer, which played clips from the game on his Web site. "To me, Halo 2  feels like Woodstock."

In one sense, Mr. Rodgers' enthusiasm is easily understood. Halo 2, the sequel to the hugely popular Xbox combat game Halo: Combat Evolved, hit the streets earlier this month to rapturous response. And Mr. Rodgers, whose company Sumthing Distribution released the first Halo soundtrack album, had a greater role on Halo 2.  He recruited several rock artists to augment the orchestral score of composers Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori, and even contributed a song himself, with Nataraj and guitarist Steve Vai..

However, the largely anonymous world of gaming still seems a surprising place to find a guy who has spent his career among the biggest names in music.

One reason for his interest, Mr. Rodgers said, is that many of the bands he has met and worked with were, like him, devoted to Halo, spending all their studio downtime playing the game. That shared passion, he said, reminded him of the idealism of the Woodstock era, and made it easy to approach acts like Incubus and Hoobastank about contributing to the Halo 2 soundtrack.

"Not one artist said to me, ‘So Nile, how much am I getting paid?'," Mr. Rodgers said. "They went, ‘Cool! What do you want me to do?' That's what artists say when you strike that chord. That's the business I started out in, and I'll do anything I can to gravitate towards situations that feel like that."

Ben Burnley, the front man of the alternative metal band Breaking Benjamin, said he asked for no money to have his composition "Blow Me Away" included on the soundtrack.  "This game is a significant thing, and I'm a huge fan, and that's payment enough," said Mr. Burnley, who does expect to collect royalties on album sales. "Nile is definitely the driving force behind getting all these bands on Halo 2, and I'm really grateful to him."

Yet Mr. Rodgers, a 52-year-old New York City native, acknowledged another reason for his new obsession. "People ask me why I'm so into video games. All my life I've had an adversary, and it was always the record industry," he explained, breaking into a gap-toothed grin. "I need someone to say no, to give me perspective, and right now it's Microsoft."

Indeed, Mr. Rodgers admits the millions of records he's sold with Chic and as a producer, which include dancefloor anthems like "Good Times," "Le Freak" and Sister Sledge's "We Are Family," were at least partially the result of such tension. "They were fun, but desperate. Every record had to be a hit," he said. "If it's not a hit, we're not valid."

For at least a decade, Mr. Rodgers and his production partner, the late Chic bassist Bernard Edwards, had more hits than they could count. The pair, who met in New York City in 1970, formed Chic after playing together in a succession of bands. Initially a studio project which also included the singer Luther Vandross, Chic became one of the most successful acts of the disco era. It even inadvertently helped give birth to hip-hop, when The Sugarhill Gang recited the pioneering 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight" over a backing track pilfered from Chic's "Good Times."

"The transformation from disco to hip-hop," said Nelson George, the author and critic, "runs right through Chic."

When Chic went on hiatus in the early ‘80s, Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Edwards split up to pursue separate projects, and Mr. Rodgers's version of Chic's sleek, stylish grooves became the hottest sound in pop. Between 1982 and 1985, he engineered David Bowie's momentous comeback with "Let's Dance"; helped propel Madonna to superstardom by producing the album "Like A Virgin"; and began a longstanding partnership with the British band Duran Duran.

Yet even at his commercial peak, he said, the desperation and need for validation continued. Fonzi Thornton, a vocalist with Chic who first met Mr. Rodgers when the pair were involved in a tour to promote the then-new children's TV series "Sesame Street," – "He was the skinniest guy I'd ever seen, with the biggest afro," Mr. Thornton recalled with a chuckle -- believes his bandmates never received their critical due.

"Nile and Bernard created a whole new sound, and nobody really understood why it was working," said Mr. Thornton, now the host of Sirius Satellite Radio's "Heart & Soul" R&B show. "So people dismissed it as disco, or ‘just dance music.' I think it was really hard for them at times."

However, Mr. George said the way the duo altered the pop mainstream was the ultimate compliment. Other artists, he said, "didn't want to change what Nile and Bernard did. They wanted that sound themselves."

The stress created by Mr. Rodgers's perfectionism led to problems when the hits dried up in the 1990's. Alcohol and drug abuse began to dominate his life and affect his guitar playing, and not even one frightening night, when his heart stopped several times, was enough to convince him to quit, Mr. Rodgers said. But he said after experiencing two days of "cocaine psychosis" following a disastrous evening at a celebrity-filled party in Miami, he finally got the message.

Mr. Rodgers had read an interview with his friend and Westport neighbor, the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. "Keith said: ‘Could I live without music? Nah, I couldn't live without music. But can I live without Jack Daniels? Yeah, I think I can do that.' And I read that, and Keith's words were like the Holy Grail to me. I just thought, if he can clean up, I can clean up!"

On his doctor's orders, Mr. Rodgers checked into a rehab clinic and then retreated to his nearby Westport home, which had been purchased during his 80's heyday as a "party house." Ironically, the residence became his refuge from intoxicants, and while Mr. Rodgers said he only brought enough clothes to last the weekend, he has lived there ever since.

"They have a joke about getting sober," Mr. Rodgers mused, as lights from the boat dock behind his house twinkled in the dusk. "It takes five years to get your marbles back, and five years to learn how to play with ‘em."

He said it has been a decade since he last used alcohol or drugs, and the return of Mr. Rodgers's marbles has coincided with an increasingly busy schedule. He heads the We Are Family Foundation, a charitable organization formed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. At his home studio, Le Crib, Mr. Rodgers has worked on the reunited Duran Duran's recent comeback, "Astronaut," and a coming project for Diana Ross.

And it is here that he and Fonzi Thornton are recording a new Chic album, the group's first since the deaths of Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson. "As long as I have Fonzi, it's still Chic," Mr. Rodgers said.

But along with sobriety, he said, has come a growing embrace of his own dance music legacy.  It is something that certain critics have long appreciated. "If people don't know Chic, that's fine, but everybody knows Nile's records," said Mr. George. "The music is very much alive."

But Mr. Rodgers sometimes believed he should pursue a higher musical calling. A conversation with the guitarist Eric Clapton, he said, changed his mind.

"Eric told me, ‘Nile, I'm so happy, because can play the music I want for the rest of my life, ‘ and I realized that this is the music I want to play," Mr. Rodgers said. "I'm gonna be 70 years old, playing dance music. And I'm looking forward to it."