https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52835
--- Comment #5 from CatLady twilight312+winebugzilla@gmail.com --- It might be worthwhile to add that old prefixes - created wa(aaa)y before version 6.16 - where controller was always working fine, were also affected by the bug (no xinput controller detected by application inside prefix), when used with wine 6.17 or later.
I can't say for sure how the old prefixes were created, but definitely NOT by running ``wine control`` first (which is the only way that creates prefix with working as ``xinput`` controller, now).