Of course. Take a look at this page, particularly the Config Slot Options section. Since I assume you are using the init.d script to initialize xboxdrv, the steps to use this option will be different than mine. But I’ll show you how I’m using it regardless.

http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/xboxdrv/xboxdrv.html

I’m not at home, so I don’t have everything in front of me. However, in rc.local, I’m initializing xboxdrv kind of like this (I think the second ‘–id 0 –led 2’ can probably be removed):

xboxdrv --trigger-as-button --id 0 --led 2 --dpad-as-button --deadzone 4000 --silent --next-config --trigger-as-button --id 0 --led 2 --deadzone 4000 --silent &

Notice the --next-config seperating the different modes. One has --dpad-as-button the second mode does not. So what that does is when I start up my pi, by default my dpads act as buttons, then if I hit the xbox button, the dpad acts as a hat switch or axis, hit it again, and it goes back to acting as buttons.

Idk if other controllers have a similar option, but if they don’t, this one option makes the xbox 360 controller, the best controller for the Pi IMO.