Gday,
Im having similar problems with 360 wired controller config. If I use this guide: [How-to] Xbox 360 Controller OSMC my controller works flawlessly in OSMC. When I launch ES it is detected as a keyboard, I believe this is because we do a mapping in the xbmc.ini config file. This (kind of) ok for ES as you can navigate the menu fine using keypad but it does not map correctly to retropie games and it seems that the analog controls are not supported. Ive tried cutting down the xbmc.ini so that ES might detect the controller as a controller but ive had no luck.
I see three options: 1. Somebody who has this working could post their config files!
2. Since ES/retropie are working flawlessly with xpad, we could try to get kodi working with xpad.
3. Wait for @mcobit to finalise his work on including the FULL retropie install.
Any help appreciated.